Picket at Guildford Town Centre, on 104th Avenue @ 152nd Street, Surrey, 3:30-6:00 August 6
Leafleting and possible caravan on August 8. Meet at Abbotsford City Hall at noon.
We members of 50+ groups collectively known as the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (CWPJN), strongly oppose the International Airshow and Aerospace, Defence and Security Expo (ADSE) in Abbotsford, BC, from August 7 to 10. Events such as these serve to normalize and expand the arms trade, aggressive military policies, growing military budgets and aggressive military engagements. They also recruit.
It is especially troubling that ADSE is taking place at Tradex Convention Centre on August 7 and 8, the Abbotsford Airshow at the Abbotsford International Airport from August 8 to 10, just after the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, and on that of Nagasaki, August 9. Public administrations and businesspeople should be organizing mass commemorations of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions and denouncing war and all weapons of mass destruction, especially as tensions increase in Eastern Europe, West Asia and the Asia Pacific. Instead, Canadian and US military air forces are celebrating the technology of war including nuclear capable tech and military action at this show. Also, the Carney government is investing more in the war industry, militarization and US-NATO expansion and aggression.
The Abbotsford Show is advertised as a family-friendly event with a benign display of aviation technology where young children are to admire the machinery of death by air. It is really a military event to promote war and war machinery. It teaches youth to overlook the destruction of life that is escalating around the world as tensions between the biggest powers grow and militarization is being ramped up in which yet again hundreds of thousands of civilians are being wounded and killed for the lowest of reasons. There should be mass events to express the common yearning for world peace, demilitarization, cease-fires in Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan and all conflicts and negotiations to end them in a just way. Warfare is not entertainment!
Several craft on display are engaged in West Asia and elsewhere. For example, the show is demonstrating the RCAF CF-18 Hornet fighter jet. A version of the CF-18, the E/A-18 Growler will be shown. The US Airforce will be a major presence with a presentation of the F-35 fighter jet, the C-17 Globemaster III cargo carrier and the Pegasus refueler.
We in the CWPJN are campaigning to stop the Canadian government’s plans to acquire of 88 fighter jets (F-35) for at least $70 billion. We underscore that such fuel-intensive craft contributes massively to climate disaster. We stand against the purchase of armed drones, too, as well as surveillance aircraft and IT.
Just as we staunchly protested the CANSEC arms trade fair, we adamantly protest ADSE. We also oppose the Abbotsford Airshow in August and the national airshow in Toronto on the Labour Day weekend, as they are characteristically military exhibitions intended to promote and sell Canada’s military materials and engagement. We oppose the arms trade and policies and actions of military aggression.
Signed: The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (July 2025)