Montreal, September 4, 2025 – Today on Parliament Hill, NDP Member of Parliament Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East) was joined by CJPME's Acting President Michael Bueckert and other civil society leaders to present her forthcoming Private Members Bill, nicknamed the “No More Loopholes Act.”

The bill is designed to close critical gaps in Canada’s arms export system that have enabled Canadian-made military goods to contribute to violations of international law, including the Gaza genocide. While the full details of the bill are yet to come, it will close major loopholes that allow Canada to supply weapons to Israel via the United States.

See below for the text of CJPME's full remarks at the press conference, or watch the video on CPAC.

Statement by Michael Bueckert, CJPME Acting President

Good morning. On behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, I want to thank Ms. Kwan for her leadership in bringing forward this important bill. The No More Loopholes Act, if adopted by Parliament, would make significant progress in ending Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

In March of last year, Parliament voted to stop the transfer of military goods to Israel. Recent polling shows that Canadians want their government to do more. But despite this clear mandate to take meaningful action against the Canada-Israel arms trade, major loopholes allow Canadian weapons to flow freely into a context of genocide.

Unfortunately, a major part of Canada’s exports operates under a veil of secrecy. Although Canada has paused some export permits for military goods being sent directly to Israel, an unreported volume continues to be transferred to Israel by way of the US – and in doing so, it goes unregulated and without the proper human rights assessment.

This is a long-standing problem which has been repeatedly raised by civil society. In 2018, Canada joined the Arms Trade Treaty, which aims to uphold the highest standards in regulating the arms trade. At that time, however, Canada made a decision not to adopt the treaty in full, but instead maintained its exemptions for exports to the US.

We warned at the time that by keeping these loopholes, the majority of Canada’s military exports would be left unregulated and unreported. As such, Canada failed to fully align itself with its international obligations under the treaty.

This failure has left us with a grave problem today. The United States is an active facilitator of Israel’s genocide, providing billions of dollars in military aid to the Israeli military every year. Most of Canada’s arms exports are routed through the US, with no vetting or safeguards to prevent made-in-Canada weapons and components from being included in US military aid packages or commercial shipments to Israel or other murderous regimes.

This is not a speculative concern. One year ago, we learned that General Dynamics in Quebec won a contract with the US government to provide high-explosive mortar cartridges to the Israeli military. While the Liberal government eventually promised to step in and stop it from going ahead, we only found out about the sale because of the press release from the US government. And this is not the only example involving this same factory.

We also know that significant Canadian technology is critical to the production of F-35 fighter jets, which are assembled in the US before being transferred to Israel, making Canada a key enabler of the relentless airstrikes that Israel deploys to wipe out entire families in Gaza.

We cannot delegate our arms control responsibilities to the United States. Canada has a legal obligation to ensure that its exports are not being used to violate human rights or international law. We simply cannot entrust the US to make these moral and legal decisions for us. That is why we must close these loopholes and finally assert control over where Canadian-made weapons are allowed to go.

We look forward to the introduction of the bill, and we urge the cooperation of members of all parties to ensure its rapid adoption. Canadians do not want to be partners in genocide, and this bill is the necessary first step. Thank you.