An anti-government protester confronts riot police during clashes after the Ashura procession in the village of Sanabis west of Manama, November 15, 2013. Hundreds of anti-government protesters, after finishing their Ashura procession, marched towards riot police and clashes, throwing molotov cocktails and strobes to which riot police responded with tear gas, bird-shots and stun-grenades to disperse them. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed (BAHRAIN - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST RELIGION)

When it comes to the international arms trade, Canada is not in the same league as the really big merchants of death, such as the United States, Russia and Germany.

We're not even in the top 10, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's data.

But the nation that helped invent peacekeeping does a fairly good business in weapons, including exports to countries many Canadians would consider dubious customers.

A Canadian Press analysis of publicly available Industry Canada arms-transaction data found exports to Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq have swelled by 100 per cent from 2011 to 2012. All have questionable records on human rights and/or recent histories of internal violent conflict.

It also sold a lot more weapons to Pakistan (98 per cent), Mexico (93 per cent) and Egypt (83 per cent). Pakistan has become a sectarian battleground, dotted with terrorist attacks, Mexico is embroiled in a bloody war with drug cartels and Egypt after the Arab Spring and a short-lived elected government has reverted to authoritarian military rule.

While the exports are legal and subject to regulation, experts told CP the trend raises question about Ottawa's foreign-policy commitment to human rights and is regulatory regime for arms exports.

“Diversification is a principle of business in this globalized economy," Walter Dorn, the chair of international affairs studies at the Canadian Forces College, told CP. "As we see western militaries decrease their defence budgets, military industries will be looking for new markets.

“The danger is that the almighty dollar may become the predominant motivator in trade deals and therefore weapons are more easily shipped.”

[ Related: Canadian arms sales 2007-09 top $1.4B ]

CP reported Canada's arms exports averaged $257 million a year from 2003 to 2012. The $251-million total for last year was up 4 per cent from 2011, despite a drop in exports to traditional allies such as Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The Industry Canada data CP examined covers a class of exports that includes guns, ammunition, artillery, flame throwers, hand grenades and torpedoes. It doesn't include military vehicles, aircraft and other big-ticket items.

The Ottawa Citizen reported last year that 2011 arms sales totalled $12 billion, including $4 billion to Saudi Arabia. The Citizen said the Saudi government may have used Canadian-made armoured vehicles to help suppress anti-government protests in neighbouring Bahrain.

Canada's biggest customer is the United States, mirroring its overall trading relationship, accounting for an average $190 million a year over the last decade, CP said. Sales were up by nine per cent last year but far from the 2007 high of $294.5-million, when the U.S. was still fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

By contrast, Canada's sales to Bahrain went from zero in 2011 to $250,000 last year and from $29 to $242,000 for Algeria at a time when governments in both countries were suppressing pro-democracy protests, CP said.

Dorn said exports to dodgier customers are relatively small compared with the millions earned from U.S. and European allies but the raise a "red flag."

“It is really strange timing that Canada would be increasing a sale of arms or military equipment, let’s say, at this moment when Bahrain has been involved in violently repressing its own peaceful democracy demonstrators,” Roland Paris, director of the Centre of International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa, told the news agency.

Foreign Minister John Baird's relative silence on Bahrain's crackdown "raises questions about the consistency of our policy and it suggests hypocrisy," Paris said.

It's unclear whether any Canadian-supplied weapons have ended up in the wrong hands, Dorn said. Canada requires customers to sign end-user certificates but the documents are often abused, especially by some African countries, Dorn told CP.

A research paper prepared for Ploughshares found that while Canada has been an "exemplary and consistent advocate" for tough controls on the trade in small arms and light weapons, "in its own house, however, Canada has been less than thorough."

"On the one hand, Canada has imposed restrictive and even innovative national procedures to control small arms transfers," the study concluded. "On the other hand, Canadian guidelines and practice fall short of some of the emerging international standards to which Canada is committed through multilateral agreements."

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