U.S. Embassy Arms Bazaar in Ottawa this fall
contravenes City Council Motion of 1989

The "U.S. Embassy Defense & Security Exhibition" is setting up shop at Lansdowne Park this fall (Sept. 30 - Oct.1) even though Ottawa City Councillors passed a motion almost unanimously (11-1) in 1989, prohibiting the use of any municipal facilities for all such future "arms exhibits."

Read the City Council Motion.

The U.S. Embassy’s military trade show at Lansdowne Park is part of a larger event called "Secure Canada 2008" that is sponsored by the U.S. government, U.S. weapons exporters and two Canadian military industry publications.

Click here to learn more about this military trade show scheduled for Lansdowne Park.

"Secure Canada 2008" promises to be the biggest, international war industry expo in Ottawa since the massive, ARMX weapons bazaar of 1989. Almost twenty years ago, the now-defunct ARMX—Canada’s largest showcase for the foreign and domestic military industry—sparked a public furor in Ottawa. Although Ottawa has continued to host various arms bazaars over the past two decades, none have been held on City property.

Opposition to ARMX also sparked the formation of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) which rallied some 4,000 concerned citizens to a peace march that culminating at the gates of Lansdowne Park in May 1989. Other groups organized the largest, nonviolent civil disobedience campaign in Ottawa’s history, resulting in 150 arrests for blocking entrances to this weapons bazaar. All charges were dropped against the war resisters, who wanted their day in court to expose the crimes of the international weapons trade.

Click here to read more about ARMX and the history COAT's disARMX campaign.

"We’re now asking the City of Ottawa to live up to its promise and to stop this latest example of the international arms trade from taking place on City property," says Richard Sanders, who founded COAT and coordinated its educational and protest campaigns against ARMX.

COAT will soon launch an online petition demanding that the City of Ottawa to live up to its 1989 Motion barring all future arms bazaars from leasing City property.

Email: Tell the Mayor, City Councillors and Staff what you think!

Please sign online PETITION now to "Stop Ottawa's Arms Shows."

(Print version: Here is a printable version of the petition that you can use to get additional signatures.)