The massacre in Gaza is terrible. But as Lenin said, “War is a “terrible” thing? Yes. But it is a terribly profitable thing.” The one sided war in Palestine is a flourishing racket and Canadian capitalists are making a killing.
General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company. Its subsidiary in Quebec, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., just won a contract worth 61.1 million USD to supply fifty thousand high explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment bound for Israel.
Justin Trudeau recently claimed that “we’ve stopped exports of arms to Israel”. With General Dynamics, mortars go through the United States first, so technically Canada doesn’t export them to Israel. But the result is the same, and the weapons end up in the hands of the same killing machine.
General Dynamics reported strong Q2 earnings, and they’re expecting business to grow, “reflecting increased demand in response to the threat environment.” It’s proven to be a good investment for Canadian banks. RBC has a whopping $809 million invested in General Dynamics. BMO, TD, Scotiabank, and CIBC have shares as well.
And it’s not the only weapons manufacturer Canadian banks are collecting dividends from. Elbit Systems is a major Israeli weapons producer. It supplies 85 per cent of Israel’s land-based military equipment, and its drones are regularly used to kill Palestinian civilians. Scotiabank has 113 million USD invested in Elbit.
BMO, meanwhile, has loaned Elbit $90 million to make weapons. BMO is also invested in Raytheon, which provides weapons systems and maintenance services to Israel’s Air Force.
Palantir Technologies provides artificial intelligence models for militaries and has a strategic partnership with the Israeli Defense Ministry. RBC owns over 2 million shares in Palantir. There’s not a major weapons manufacturer that Canadian banks aren’t invested in.
Then there’s the companies that get around Trudeau’s rule of only supplying “non-lethal” goods to Israel by making components for weapons systems, not the weapons themselves. L3Harris Technologies has locations across Canada, and it makes electro-optic/infrared sensors—not lethal, but the weapons systems they guide certainly are.
CAE Inc. is a Montreal-based company that manufactures flight simulators and trains pilots. It provided M-346 training devices for the Israeli Air Force, teaching them to use the planes that are now bombing civilians.
INKAS is a security and defence company, headquartered in Toronto. It makes armored vehicles, and “has supplied the government of Israel with more command & control units than any other supplier in history.”
Canadian capitalism is intertwined with Israel’s genocide; capitalists cannot resist a booming industry, even if that industry is blowing up civilians. Like with the General Dynamics deal, if they’re given a limit they’ll find a go-around. The whole system has got to go.
