A recent decision by the Parliament of Canada to halt exports of weapons to Israel is a significant symbolic gesture, Canada being the first G7 country to do so.
But how significant is it in terms of actual exports? Recently, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) offered a public interface into its database or arms transfers. Here are two examples of export of weapons, from Canada and the USA, to Israel and Ukraine, for the past few years. First, about the units of measure used in the tables below:
SIPRI has developed a unique system to measure the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons using a common unit, the trend-indicator value (TIV). The TIV is based on the known unit production costs of a core set of weapons and is intended to represent the transfer of military resources rather than the financial value of the transfer.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers
| Recipient | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2020-2023 | Percentage |
| Ukraine | 5 | 20 | 966 | 1729 | 2719 | 5.7% |
| Israel | 316 | 425 | 430 | 453 | 1624 | 3.4% |
| Total exports from USA | 9532 | 11074 | 15592 | 11287 | 47485 | 100% |
Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database (c) SIPRI.
| Recipient | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2020-2023 | Percentage |
| Ukraine | 33 | 167 | 200 | 29% | ||
| Total exports from Canada | 110 | 118 | 175 | 285 | 688 | 100% |
Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database (c) SIPRI.
Where, you may ask, is the Israel line in the second table? There isn’t any, since the numbers are zero across the board. They do show up in a specific “Canada to Israel” query:
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2020-2023 | Percentage | |
| Total exports from Canada to Israel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database (c) SIPRI.
Canada is a “soft middle power”, “punching above its weight“, eh?
Brock Coalition Against Antisemitism 
I believe Canada IMPORTS weapon systems from Israel And of course Iran exports weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah It’s almost amusing
Stan Sadava Professor Emeritus, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON.
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Well, let’s check:
Nothing in 2023. Israel makes top-notch weapons, so it’s Canada’s declining defence spending that is the likely culprit.
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