An Ontario-based company, Roshel Inc. (Roshel Smart Armored Vehicles) of Brampton, Ontario, is supplying armoured vehicles ordered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).This decision is ethically unacceptable given ICE’s well-documented record of human rights abuses, and it raises serious concerns about Ontario’s role—direct or indirect—in facilitating this supply chain.

ICE has been repeatedly linked to aggressive enforcement practices, including family separations, abusive detention conditions, medical neglect, and preventable deaths. Armoured vehicles are not neutral equipment. Supplying them materially strengthens ICE’s capacity to conduct raids and detentions that cause demonstrable harm. Any company entering into such an agreement does so with full awareness of how this equipment is likely to be used.

Roshel is a private defence manufacturer, and there is currently no evidence of direct Ontario provincial funding for this specific ICE sale. However, the absence of direct funding does not remove ethical responsibility. Businesses operating in Ontario benefit from provincial infrastructure, labour, reputation, and regulatory environments, and they have a duty to consider the real-world impact of their products—not only the profitability of their contracts.

While job creation and economic activity matter to Canadians, economic benefit cannot justify involvement in or facilitation of human rights abuses. Supporting good jobs does not require exporting tools of force to agencies whose conduct has been repeatedly condemned by human rights and civil liberties organizations.

The Government of Ontario may not control every private commercial transaction, but it does control whether provincial approval, facilitation, incentives, procurement relationships, or political support are provided. Allowing provincial involvement—or remaining silent—risks legitimizing this supply chain and associating Ontario with enforcement practices that many Canadians fundamentally oppose.

Premier Doug Ford’s government must be clear where it stands. Ontario can support economic development without enabling harm, and it should not allow provincial resources, influence, or reputation to be used in support of agreements that contradict Canadian values of dignity, accountability, and human rights.

We call on Roshel Inc. to reconsider its decision to supply armoured vehicles to ICE, and we call on the Government of Ontario to publicly oppose this sale, to ensure that no provincial support or facilitation is connected to it, and to affirm that Ontario will not be complicit in enforcement practices that cause harm. 

Sign this petition to make it clear: Ontario should not arm ICE — and human rights are not for sale.