Picket at Guildford Town Centre, on 104th Avenue @ 152nd Street, Surrey, 3:30-6:00 August 6
Meet at Abbotsford City Hall at noon on August 7 for a picket and possible caravan.
We members of 60+ 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 6 and 7, the Abbotsford Airshow at the Abbotsford International Airport from August 7 to 10, on the 81st 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. We oppose the arms trade and policies and actions of military 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!
The show is demonstrating the RCAF CF-18 Hornet fighter jet and a version of the CF-18, the E/A-18 Growler, which are presently engaged in West Asia and elsewhere. Representatives of Lockheed Martin will speak at the Expo flanked by federal and provincial government officials.
We in the CWPJN are campaigning to stop the Canadian government’s plans to acquire more F-35 fighter jets, Gripen fighter jets and submarines. 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 AI.
Just as we staunchly protest the CANSEC arms trade fair, we adamantly protest ADSE. CWPJN supports the World Beyond War campaign against all military air shows because the promote arms trade and proliferation, aggressive missions and increased military spending. Ban Military Air Shows – World BEYOND War
More broadly, the CWPJN calls for Canada to get out of NATO, the closure of foreign military bases and the dissolution of NATO. Reduce military spending and military development! Social spending and development!
The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (July 2026)