CHOPPER DEAL DRAWS FIRE

CANADA BACKING SALE TO NOTORIOUS PHILIPPINES REGIME

Canada is selling 16 combat helicopters to the Philippines — a country where President Rodrigo Duterte is facing widespread condemnation for a war on drugs that has left about 12,000 people dead.

The $234 million deal, brokered by the Canadian Commercial Corporation, involves Bell 412 aircraft which are expected to be built at the U.S. company’s plant in Mirabel, Que.

The sale was denounced by human rights activists who warned that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was cozying up to some of the more dubious regimes in the world. They pointed to an ongoing deal to sell light-armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a move the Liberals criticized the Conservative government for arranging but went ahead with when Trudeau came to power.

“The Liberal government had pledged to uphold higher standards after the terrible Saudi arms deal but instead it is selling to the worst and most repressive regime in Asia where the president brags about personally shooting drug users and throwing people out of helicopters,” said Steve Staples, vice president of the Rideau Institute in Ottawa. “How long will it be until the (Philippine) military is using the helicopters during executions?”

Staples pointed out that the deal would not have gone through without the backing of the Canadian government and the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Crown corporation.

Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, an organization that works to prevent war and armed violence, warned the deal could have serious ramifications. “Given President Duterte’s abysmal human rights record — which Ottawa is no doubt aware of — this raises troubling questions about the risk of the helicopters being equipped with weapons and of their use in human rights violations,” Jaramillo told Postmedia.

He also noted that the sale exposed a major loophole in Canada’s military export controls. “Although the helicopters are being supplied for military use, they are classified by the Canadian government as civilian and thus their export does not require special authorization.”

The NDP’s foreign affairs critic, Hélène Laverdière, called on Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to refuse approval for the export permits needed for the helicopter sale. “How can Trudeau justify this deal with the Philippines when Duterte’s government has plunged the country into a terrible human rights crisis?” Laverdière tweeted.

In a release announcing the deal, Bell Helicopter said it was “honoured” to be supplying the aircraft to the Philippine military.

The Canadian Commercial Corporation also brokered the $15 billion light-armoured vehicles deal with the Saudis — which Trudeau dismissed on the campaign trail as just “jeeps.”

The controversial deal returned to the spotlight last year when it was reported that another type of armoured vehicle from a Canadian firm was being used by the Saudis on their own citizens.