Canada fails to report US sales to UN arms register.

Despite repeated Canadian endorsement of the UN Register of Conventional Arms, data on equipment transfers to the US has been omitted from annual Canadian submissions to the UN Register since at least 1995. From press and other unofficial reports it is known that at least three sales totaling 32 light armoured vehicles (LAVs) shipped to the US from General Motors of Canada in London have not been included in Canadian reports to the UN. It is possible other equipment transfers to the US in one or more of the seven categories of the UN Register also have gone unreported.

Government officials acknowledge that Canada's reporting methodology is incomplete, and that the lack of US data weakens Canadian calls for transparency in the international arms trade. They note that under the terms of the US-Canada Defence Production Sharing Arrangements no official record is kept of Canadian arms shipments to the US. Government statistics reported in the annual report on the export of Canadian military goods are based on export permit records and

no export permits are required for US-Canada military trade. And as a result of government budget cuts, the compilation of voluntary records of Canadian military exports to the US was abandoned in 1992, one year before Canada's first report to the UN Register.

The US shipments known to be omitted from Canadian reports to the UN Register are: three light armoured vehicles for prototype assault gun variants for the US Marines, delivered in 1995; 12 LAVs for the National Guard, with deliveries beginning in 1995; and 17 light armoured vehicles for air defence variants, also for the US Marines with deliveries beginning in 1997. In both Marine orders General Motors shipped the LAVs to a US prime contractor where the armament was added before delivery. The estimated value of the 32 armoured vehicles is $20-30 million.