In 1997, Abbotsford, British Columbia will once again host Airshow Canada, the biennial civil and military aerospace trade show adjunct to the Abbotsford International Airshow. Little known in this country, Airshow Canada is now the fourth largest aerospace trade show in the world. David Thiessen explains the growing role played by Airshow Canada in promoting military sales to the Pacific Rim and elsewhere.

"Although Airshow Canada likes to present the image of a commercial rather than military show," writes the editor of Airshow Canada's Aerogram, "it was impossible to avoid the echoes of the Persian Gulf War in 1991."[1] Since its inception in 1989, Airshow Canada has managed to avoid completely the kind of sustained publicity that eventually closed the ARMX trade show in Ottawa - so much so that in April Project Censored Canada ranked the military activities surrounding Airshow Canada the eighth most censored news story of 1995. Indeed, few residents of British Columbia, let alone the rest of Canada, realize that the show is now regarded as North America's premier forum for the entire aerospace industry, military and civil, as well as all its customers, democratic or dictatorial.

Airshow Canada has seen rapid growth in the seven years it has existed. Two hundred firms exhibited at the first trade show in 1989, 37 of which were military;[2] by 1993 (a mere two shows later), 15,000 delegates from 70 different countries discussed trade at 509 exhibitions - at least 104 of which represented a major military manufacturer. Of these 104, 22 were significant Canadian military exporters (those who have consistently received Defence Industry Productivity Program [DIPP] grants and have repeated government-documented military exports). In fact all ten of Canada's "top ten" DIPP recipients during the period between 1969 and 1990[3] were participants in Airshow Canada'93.

Foreign or international military manufacturers represented at the show included British Aerospace (Britain's #1 exporter of arms and Europe's single largest weapons manufacturer); McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Boeing, Hughes Aircraft (some of the largest American weapons manufacturers); Aerospatiale (the largest French military firm and largest manufacturer of missiles in the world); and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan's largest military manufacturer), to name just a few.

It was the 1995 show, however, that really cemented Airshow Canada's position as the largest aerospace trade show in North America and fourth largest in the world. Not only did major civil industries participate at an unprecedented level, and not only did such military giants as Sikorsky, Rockwell International, and Loral Aeroneutronic join the show for the first time, but government involvement, including a visit from a large Saudi Arabian military delegation, also increased. Lockheed highlighted its "new C-130J tactical airlifter, F-16 fighter, and theater missile defense system," all of which, it said in Airshow Canada's pre-show publication Aerogram, "are now available for worldwide sales." "McDonnell Douglas," said the same publication, "returned to Airshow Canada'95 with a focus on the F/A-18 Hornet: the international fighter of choice well into the next century." "With its rising number of visitors and participants," said Aerospatiale, "Airshow Canada is an excellent window for our products, which include a full range of aircraft from small fighters to the largest airlines as well as various missiles."

The push to join Airshow Canada reflects the nature of the post-Cold War arms trade and Canada's role in it, a movement away from "hard-core" arms bazaars and toward venues that better promote the dual interests of aerospace corporations (where civil and military hardware have always comfortably co-existed). As Airshow Canada concludes in its Brief to the Province of British Columbia,[4] "the world market for civil and military aircraft, including parts, engines, and support, is well in excess of $100-billion US, not including missiles, and has led to large increases in exhibitor space requirements as industry and government vie for a share of this multi-billion dollar pie."

In the process of scrambling for a piece of the pie, however, governments (mostly western) have become increasingly willing to embrace a general duplicity concerning the export of military goods; they talk the talk of international arms controls while seeking greater export opportunities. It is one thing to say, as Peter Smith, President of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, wryly commented, that "it is not for those who manufacture or assemble weapons to grapple with the moral issue of who the arms should or should not be sold to" if the appropriateness is determined, as Smith concludes, "by the rules of the game in government policy."[5] It is something altogether different when both government and industry are driven by the profit motive, and seek ways around the rules. In October of last year, for example, the parliamentary newsletter Ottawa Letter reported that Trade Minister Roy MacLaren and Industry Minister John Manley were growing increasingly concerned that too altruistic a stand concerning arms export regulations by Canada would be economically harmful. MacLaren, in fact, went as far as wondering "whether we've actually lost a lot of business because of the rules on defence exports." "We need to recognize," concluded Manley, "that there are and will always be conflicts" and that "we have Canadian defence firms with expertise, we have Canadians who are employed in these businesses, and we want to see them succeed."

In fact, most of the post-Gulf War talk about tightening arms sales controls (to prevent further killing of American soldiers with arms made by Americans) has since given way to a larger than ever effort to locate new military export opportunities. In Canada, this has meant a further distorting of the principles inherent in our military export regulations (intended to "closely control" the sale of arms or related technologies to areas in conflict or with a history of serious human rights abuse). The government's recent attempt to sell Turkey 39 modernized CF-5s showed just how much it is willing to distort export regulations. Its approval of, and deep participation in, Airshow Canada carries the same message of hypocrisy. The 1995 trade show, for example, attracted 51 of the same military firms that attended ARMX'89 in Ottawa, a trade show that former Foreign Affairs Minister Andre Ouellet, then a member of the opposition, called "a profitable and scandalous effort to sell weapons to Third World Countries."[6] Yet, according to Jean Chretien in his address to Airshow Canada'95 exhibitors, "from Airshow Canada's beginnings in 1989, the government of Canada has supported this event."

The trend that Ouellet lamented - i.e., seeing the third' or lesser industrialized world as the primary aerospace market of the future has been the most central impulse behind Airshow Canada's mushrooming prominence, an impulse that tends to see as irrelevant the virtual genocide of the Kurds by Turkey, the East Timorese by Indonesia, the Tibetans by China, and others. As Airshow Canada states in its provincial brief, "Airshow Canada has achieved its objective of creating a sustaining, world-class event... by taking full advantage of its location as the Doorway to the Pacific Rim" and by "attracting aerospace procurement personnel from developing countries to meet Canadian aerospace companies [with the] intent of creating business and joint ventures between Canada and the developing countries." "We have been pushing the Pacific Rim connection very hard," says Airshow Canada President Ron Price, "and we have been very pleased with the response we have received from not only China, but Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia as well."[7]

As report after report have indicated for years now, the traditional arms markets of North America and Europe are in decline; the Middle East, Latin America, and in particular the Asia-Pacific region have since come to be seen as the most important arms markets of the future. In "Aerospace after the Cold War: A blueprint for success," the US Aerospace Association reveals that "major increases in foreign sales" were primarily responsible for its $26-billion trade surplus last year.[8] "The region of South East Asia is one of the last in the world where defence budgets continue to expand in the post-Cold War era," Derek da Cunha of Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies recently told a meeting of defence officials at the Defense Asia '95 exhibition.[9] "Everyone in the world sees this region as important for defence exports," said Ross Hamilton (Australian Submarine Corporation) at the same event, and to fail to get your foot in the door now will mean missing large sales as they arise.

Never was this more evident than at Airshow Canada'95. For starters, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), according to Aerogram, increased the amount of money they were willing to spend in order to "pay for more than 80 delegates from the developing world to attend the show." (At a time when Canada's foreign aid contributions have reached an all-time low - 0.32 per cent of GNP - this says a lot about how the government interprets its Red Book pledge to address the social causes of war and to "adopt a broader definition of national and international security.") Because of new initiatives like the presence of SICOFFA, the military wing of the Organization of American States, said Airshow Canada personnel, our "five-day conference will be attended by Senior Air Force Officials from all North, Central, and South American nations, many with procurement responsibilities." "The inter-dependent nature of the defence and civil aspects of the aerospace industry," concluded Airshow Canada, "make this [addition] to Airshow Canada relevant and provides a unique opportunity for [these] delegates to view state-of-the-art technology first hand."

In addition, not only did Canadian military export officials attend the show (as did the Defence Export Service of the United Kingdom, the Italian Department of Defence, the Austrian Military Group, the Netherlands' Defence mission, and many others), but Canada's Department of National Defence also joined hands with Bristol Aerospace (one of Canada's leading defence firms) in a concentrated effort to sell the modernized CF-5s it recently tried selling to Turkey. Obviously aimed at a third-world or lesser industrialized market, a huge billboard flanked by three CF-5s was planted at the trade show entrance informing potential customers that "the decision to buy new or used just got easier."

Perhaps most revealing, a few months before the 1995 show, Airshow Canada proudly announced the decision by ComDef (a Washington DC-based arms symposium/bazaar) to relocate permanently to Vancouver "in order to tap into the natural synergy between participants at both events." For the past five years, ComDef had sought ways to revitalize the arms industry event. "Since 1991," said ComDef's Chief Executive Officer David Whiteree in an interview, "we have held discussions with members of various delegations, including Egypt and Turkey, about the possibility of finding a new home for ComDef."[10] "ComDef," announced Airshow Canada, "will now be able to visit the trade show as guests of Airshow Canada" which "will allow it to explore opportunities between North American nations and Asian and Pacific nations in the areas of defence, defence technology, and logistics." "We are building," says Ron Price, "an important bridge between the aerospace markets of North America, Europe, and Asia."

Despite all this, the city of Abbotsford, as well as local and national media, continue to promote (and occasionally defend) the trade show on the basis that it is a civil trade show with little military activity involved. While a large proportion of the exhibitions at the trade show are civil, and many of those with dual interests highlight their civilian projects as well as their military ones, this claim is growing increasingly impossible to substantiate. More accurately, Airshow Canada reflects a growing willingness by trade show organizers, the military industry, and the Canadian government to hide (behind prominent civil displays) their willingness to dismiss the principles inherent in Canada's arms export regulations. In fact, the paper released last spring by Ottawa[11] detailing the government's military export strategy for 1995/96 implies the same concern and reflects the same attitude as that expressed by MacLaren and Manley. "Accessible and suitable markets exist for Canadian [military] products in the newly industrialized economies of the Asia-Pacific and Middle-East regions," urges the report. Nations tagged as particularly important military export regions (as "Priority Countries" or "Growth Markets") include Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and China.

Most of these countries are currently engaged in, or under threat of, conflict. The governments of China, Turkey, and Indonesia have all been deeply involved in near-genocidal activities for decades. Nonetheless, the report concluded that "a more focused effort is required [in these regions] to promote Canadian technology and expertise in defence products [if we are to] realize market potential." Airshow Canada has become a central avenue through which the government (and Canada's military industry) attempt to put into action this "more focused effort;" it is listed in the Export Strategy report (alongside other international shows) as a venue through which the government will "assist industry in establishing key contacts in the foreign country defence community."

Apparently, near-genocidal activities should not, according to the federal government and Airshow Canada, stop military manufacturers from attempting to export military products to these regions; they simply mean that additional hoops must be jumped through. Much of Airshow Canada's success, it must ultimately be conceded, rests on its promise to make the effort as easy as possible.

David Thiessen is a freelance writer and member of Project Ploughshares Fraser Valley who has spent several years researching the Abbotsford International Airshow and Airshow Canada. He is also a member of the Planning Committee for the Fraser Valley Arts and Peace Festival.

Endnotes

1 Airshow Canada, Aerogram: 91 Review/93 Launch, p. 14.

2 The definition of "Canadian military firms" is based on Project Ploughshares' Canadian Military Industry Database (that is, on contracts awarded by the Department of National Defence, military export contracts arranged by the Canadian Commercial Corporation on behalf of foreign governments, Pentagon contracts placed directly with Canadian firms), and/or refers to Canadian firms which received DIPP grants since 1980.

3 Ken Epps, "The Defence Industry Productivity Program: Contributions 1969 through 1990,"Ploughshares Working Paper 91-2, 1991.

4 Airshow Canada, Brief to the Province of British Columbia, 1993, p. 6.

5 Toronto Star, April 8, 1995.

6 House of Commons Debates, May 19, 1989, p. 1988.

7 Vancouver Sun, August 5, 1993.

8 David Vadas, "Aerospace after the Cold War: A blueprint for success," Aerospace America, October 1995, p. 18.

9 As quoted by Robert Birsel, Reuters Press (C-reuter@clarinet.com), September 14, 1995.

10 John Roos, "Format, Venue Changes Explored in Bid to Revitalize ComDef," Armed Forces International Journal, January 1991.

11 Minister of Supply and Services, Canada's Export Strategy: The International Trade Business Plan 1995/96, An Integrated Plan for Trade, Investment, and Technology Development, Industrial Sector II (Defence Products), 1995.