Order of Canada Recipients Demand Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Weapons By Jeff Davis Published August 26, 2009

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Hundreds of Order of Canada recipients, representing some of the country's leading scientific, cultural and political luminaries, are joining a growing global groundswell calling for a multilateral agreement to end the use of nuclear weapons.

Yet while their effort is particularly focused on pushing for Canada to take a leading role, a top Canadian nuclear arms expert says the Harper government has been veering away from this longstanding position of non-proliteration.

In recent months, a petition has been circulated to recipients of the Order of Canada urging support for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's calls for a multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty. Of the 3,215 living recipients of Canada's highest civilian honour, 286 have signed on so far.

The petition is the brainchild of a trio of Canadian anti-nuclear weapons activists: internationally renowned social justice activist and Pearson Peace Medal recipient Murray Thomson, eminent University of Toronto chemist and 1986 Nobel Prize winner John Polanyi, and Doug Roche, a longtime Canadian politician turned Canadian ambassador for disarmament.

Together, these three Order of Canada recipients managed to gain the support of an impressive cross section of Canadians. Scientists aside, the list includes filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Norman Jewison, authors Margaret Atwood, Charlotte Gray and Michael Ondaatje, entertainers like Bruce Cockburn and artists such as Alex Colville. Also onside are former ambassador Stephen Lewis, environmentalist David Suzuki, ballerina Karen Kain, former external affairs minister Flora MacDonald and Senator Romeo Dallaire.

Mr. Thomson said the petitioners are calling for international negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would be a verifiable treaty on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. He acknowledged getting the world to agree to abandon the bomb is an enormous challenge. However, he said, there is simply no alternative.

"It's sure not a slam dunk, but you see there really isn't any alternative in the short run or the long run," he said. "You either have to end up with a broad agreement, or if you don't, you're going to get proliferation. And if you get proliferation, inevitably you're going to get the end of our civilization. Those are the choices."

Ed Broadbent, a former leader of the New Democratic Party, said he signed onto the petition because "I believe very strongly that not just the control of numbers of nuclear weapons, but virtually the elimination of nuclear weapons, should be a serious agenda, and the sooner we get a serious process underway that would lead to that the better."

"The fact that so many distinguished Canadians from very different walks of life are supporting this indicates that there is broad support in Canada as a whole for such an initiative," he added. "These are serious people who are not accustomed to signing just anything that comes before them."

Former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy said he was pleased to sign because "this is something that will really require a much broader public statement, public voice in order to move it along."

Mr. Axworthy said the threat of nuclear weapons is among the "outstanding crucial issues of our time," and the Obama administration's interest in the issue increases the likelihood of successfully launching multilateral negotiations.

He added that it was important for Canada to take a leading role in pushing this ahead "because we were the first country to declare ourselves a non-nuclear nation and we've taken a lot of leadership over the years, and I think it's important to continue that."

Global Support Growing

Support for global nuclear disarmament has grown significantly in the past year, with a number of influential international opinion leaders making very public calls for the world to re-energize the previously moribund disarmament efforts.

In May, US President Barack Obama met with four men who have been at the forefront of this new push for global nuclear disarmament—former defense secretary William Perry, former US senator Sam Nunn, and former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz.

"We don't want a world of continued nuclear proliferation," Mr. Obama said following the meeting. "It is absolutely imperative that America takes leadership, working not just with our Russian counterparts ... to pursue and ultimately eliminate the dangers that are posed by nuclear weapons."

Similar comments have also come from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. During a major speech on nuclear issues in October 2008, Mr. Ban said the time had come to break the nuclear "stalemate" and that states "could consider negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations."

At the centre of these calls lies the Nuclear Weapons Convention, which is currently not in force.

The Nuclear Weapons Convention currently exists in draft form, having been written by an Australia-based civil society group called the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. In 2007, Costa Rica and Malaysia presented the document to the United Nations General Assembly, calling for the immediate commencement of negotiations leading to an NWC. It gained the support of 127 nations but negotiations failed to launch.

Mr. Thomson said the co-operation of nuclear weapons states such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel will be key, as will that of NATO allies.Current NATO strategic thinking, he lamented, has no plans for nuclear weapons reductions.

"The [NATO] policy would say we must have nuclear weapons indefinitely, and it runs exactly counter to the idea that there's got to be a time limit and it's got to happen soon."

The fact that the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention took just a few months to put together gives him hope, Mr. Thomson said. He added that he thinks 2020 is a "realistic" time horizon for the launching of a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

Mr. Thomson said while the petitioners have not yet gotten signs of support from the government, things may soon change. Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae is an officer of the Order of Canada, and Mr. Thomson said if the Liberals were elected to power, the fact Mr. Rae signed the petition is "promising."

Trevor Findlay, a professor at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, is one of Canada's leading experts on nuclear weapons issues. A contributor to the text of the draft Nuclear Weapons Convention, he was very pleased with the response to the petition.

"I think it's terrific and fantastic that so many eminent Canadians would be involved in this," he said. "It's incredibly timely because there's been this groundswell of support in other countries, so its good Canadians are joining this movement."

Mr. Findlay said there is a "snowballing effect" these days, as more and more NGOs take up the disarmament cause, encouraged at least in part by President Obama.

Whether the NWC succeeds, he said, depends heavily on whether Russia and the United States agree to make significant reductions during the ongoing START negotiations. France and England are already willing to ban nuclear weapons, Mr. Findlay said, but he predicted that China and other nuclear states will likely demand Russia and the United States reduce their stockpiles to 1,000 warheads before they begin reducing their own.

He said it is "not totally implausible" that a global nuclear disarmament treaty be reached by 2020, but added that it would likely take decades for participating nations to dismantle and dispose of their arsenals.

Embassy asked the Department of Foreign Affairs for Canada's position on the Nuclear Weapons Convention. This question was not answered by press time.

Canada's 'Retrograde Steps'

Since the end of the Second World War, when Canada refused to build nuclear weapons despite possessing the technical capacity, Canada has enjoyed a high "moral stature" in the nuclear disarmament game Mr. Findlay said.

Successive governments, regardless of political stripe, remained active players on the disarmament field, and played an important role in creation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said.

But since the Harper government came to power, Mr. Findlay said, Canada's approach has changed.

"Canada really hasn't said what its attitude is for quite a while and needs to," he said. "Canada's been taking very much the back seat lately, and you would think a country that had been so much in favour of nuclear arms control for so many years would now leap at the chance to support Mr. Obama in his efforts."

On the contrary, he said, Canada has recently taken steps that served to weaken global nuclear controls. For one, he said, Canada decided to resume nuclear commerce with India even though India illegally manufactured and tested nuclear weapons using Canadian materiel. India also refused to join NPT.

Furthermore, he said, Canada has been seeking an exemption from a Nuclear Suppliers Group ban on uranium enrichment. The G8 nations have decided to place a moratorium on enrichment to discourage Iran and other countries from doing so, but Canada has been seeking an exemption so it could potentially export enriched uranium in the future.

"Canada's been trying to carve out a little exemption for itself," he said. "This is seen as a retrograde step in nuclear disarmament.

"Canada is not really the great supporter of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament that it used to be," Mr. Findlay concluded. "It's worse than gone quiet, it has actually taken steps that don't seem to be supportive."

jdavis@embassymag.ca