According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and leading Canadian experts like former Ambassador for Disarmament, the Hon. Douglas Roche, the world has quietly entered a second nuclear age. On January 17, 2007, world scientists moved the hands on the ‘Doomsday Clock’ two minutes closer to midnight in light of the dual threats of climate change and the increasing effort to build nuclear weapons. Not since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world been closer to the threat of nuclear war. Canada has simply not been doing its part to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to protest when allies violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, Canada continues to press for sales of its CANDU nuclear technology around the world, without adequate safeguards. Canada has sold reactors to dictatorships, such as Argentina in the junta era. Canadian research-reactor waste in India allowed that nation to join the nuclear club. Phasing out nuclear energy as an aspect of nuclear military disarmament is essential. The Harper Administration’s decision to contract to sell nuclear materials to India, in contravention of the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty concluded at the 2010 G-20 meeting, further eroded limits on nuclear weapons and global respect for the rule of law.
Canada needs to support the Five-Point Plan of the United Nations Secretary General, backed by the unanimous motion adopted by both the Senate and House of Commons in 2010. This effort to reinforce the Non-Proliferation Treaty through a Nuclear Weapons Convention has also been supported by over 800 members of the Order of Canada.
The Green Party of Canada strives for global disarmament, and for the conversion of all military industries in Canada and worldwide into peaceful, sustainable industries. We, at the Green Party, realize that it is difficult for a single country to disarm unilaterally under the threat of another arming state, and that disarmament can be best achieved multilaterally, in harmony and communion universally, and at a global level, notably through the UN.
Green Party MPs will:
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Press for the implementation of the UN Secretary General’s Five-Point Plan working toward a Nuclear Weapons Convention outlawing the use of these weapons of mass destruction;
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End subsidies to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) for promoting reactor sales abroad, and refuse to finance such ‘sales’ with tax dollars;
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Strengthen the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency to prevent nuclear reactor fuels from finding their way into nuclear weapons;
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Press NATO allies to get out of the nuclear weapons business;
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Move rapidly to multi-lateral negotiations to eliminate all nuclear stockpiles and prevent rebuilding of nuclear arsenals using such UN processes as the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CNTBT), a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, taking U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons off alert status, legally binding guarantees by nuclear weapons states not to attack non-nuclear states, and enhanced verification techniques.
“In protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development, the Green Party should also highlight the imperative of the total elimination of nuclear weapons.”
The Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., February 17, 2007, Address to the Green Party foreign policy forum