This 1987 book begins with a scene from the American invasion of Grenada: as politicians in Ottawa argued whether Canada had been misled or merely ignored over the invasion, the fighter aircraft, helicopters, and ships used in the operation employed key Canadian components.

Grenada was only too typical of Canada's involvement in the international arms trade. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Ernie Regehr paints a disturbing picture of the Canadian arms industry, an industry whose sales then totalled $3 billion annually and whose customers included regimes that routinely ignored human rights.

Arms Canada is a book that will inform, anger, and shock, as it demonstrates how the publicity-shy arms industry achieved a position of power in Canadian society, and ultimately how it compromised Canadian autonomy.