Crown corp. alerted minister's office about U.S. artillery ammunition sale connected to Israel
CBC
A Crown corporation alerted Canada's international trade minister about the sale of artillery ammunition to the U.S., some of which was destined for Israel, CBC News has learned.
The CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which oversees international arms transfers, wrote a letter to Dominic LeBlanc on March 20, 2025.
"As a trusted industry partner, General Dynamics Ordnance [and] Tactical Systems has been the exclusive supplier of propellant for U.S. Department of Defence howitzer ammunition," the CEO, Bobby Kwon, wrote in the letter.
U.S. records show the propellant was being used in support of Ukraine and Israel.
CBC News obtained the note through an access to information request asking for correspondence between the corporation and government about Canadian arms that could be used in Gaza.
It's the first publicly available documented instance the CCC directly raised the issue of shipments to the U.S. to an elected official.
LeBlanc is no longer international trade minister, but maintains responsibility for Canada-U.S. trade as part of his cabinet portfolio.
Kwon explained the CCC was on the cusp of renewing a contract between the General Dynamics plant in Valleyfield, Que., and the U.S. Department of Defence for the manufacture and sale of two orders of propellant, a type of smokeless powder that pushes an artillery cannon's projectile out.
He also outlined how a previous agreement from 2023 with the U.S. already existed to expand propellant production capacity at General Dynamics.
A U.S. government website shows an agreement from 2023 signed with the CCC for propellant, mentioning the "effort in support of Ukraine and Israel." The site says $628.5 million US has been spent to date.
A few paragraphs and lines in the letter obtained by CBC News are redacted. The online news outlet The Maple previously reported on a seemingly more redacted version of the letter, making no references to the specific General Dynamics contract.
More than a year prior to Kwon writing the letter, in January 2024, the federal government had declared it was no longer allowing the shipment of lethal arms directly to Israel.
However, concerns that Canadian-manufactured arms and ammunition were going to Israel after first being sent to the U.S. were raised by activist groups in a detailed report last fall.
At the time, CBC News independently verified a couple of the shipments identified by the groups had indeed made their way to Israel from the U.S.
Five months ago, Dr. Anne Herdman Royal began a new job in Canada. Driven out of the United States by a shifting political landscape and a mass shooting at the hospital where she worked in Tulsa, Okla., it had become a country she no longer wanted to call home.
Alberta's government — along with the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, and the province’s energy regulator — say they want to crack down on oil and gas companies that don’t pay their property taxes.
Ottawa will now allow rural businesses to employ more temporary foreign workers to help supplement the local workforce, a move Restaurants Canada says will help some restaurants on P.E.I. keep their doors open.
The City of Calgary is reminding people to save water after a recent spike in usage.
The number of visitors to food banks in Mississauga has nearly doubled since the height of the pandemic, says the city's largest food security organization.
After three weeks on the road in Yellowknife doing Inuvialuktun translation for the Northwest Territories legislative assembly, Lillian Elias says she's tired and ready to go home to Inuvik.
Metrolinx is reporting "significant" delays to several GO train lines late Monday afternoon due to a police investigation.
The federal government is spending $14.3 million to support over two dozen Yukon organizations and First Nations governments with arts, culture and language programming.
The war in the Middle East, the fear that it could escalate and the economic consequences were top of mind as Prime Minister Mark Carney met his British counterpart Monday in the United Kingdom at the tail of a whirlwind trip to Europe.
Alberta and Czechia will host the fourth edition of the World Cup of Hockey, a country-versus-country hockey tournament set to hit the ice in February 2028, the NHL announced Monday.
The Ontario government has confirmed it is cutting provincial funding for seven supervised drug consumption sites, days after harm reduction advocates said they were notified of the decision.
In the sprawling labyrinth of shops and showrooms in the Chinese city of Yiwu, parts of what’s widely known as the "world’s supermarket" are beginning to look more like a world-class warehouse.
The lawyer representing Umar Zameer, a man cleared in the death of a Toronto police officer two years ago, says he has "serious misgivings" about an upcoming report into the conduct of several officers involved in the case.