Motion to Urge Nuclear Weapon States to Reaffirm Commitment Adopted
(includes News Release)

Debates of the Senate (Hansard) of Canada
2nd Session, 36th Parliament,
Volume 138, Issue 39
Tuesday, March 28, 2000
The Honourable Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, Speaker pro tempore

News Release
The Senate of Canada on March 28th adopted a Motion urging the Nuclear
Weapon States to move to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons, as
called for by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Motion, introduced by Douglas Roche, O.C., Independent Senator from
Alberta, was adopted without a vote.
Senator Roche, speaking as Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, urged
the Government of Canada to work alongside the New Agenda Coalition at the
NPT Review Conference (April 24-May 19) to obtain the Nuclear Weapon States'
reaffirmation of their NPT Article VI commitment "and ensure that
governments make new commitments to accelerate the nuclear disarmament
process."
Speaking as a Government member in the Senate debate, Senator Sheila
Finestone, calling the NPT Review Conference "crucial," said: "The future
course of nuclear weapons, attitudes, policies, and arsenals is at stake."
She said Canada would seek an updated action program with new, concrete
objectives for disarmament and non-proliferation, advance a more robust
review process, and promote universal adherence to the NPT.
Senator Noel Kinsella, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, said
the time has come for governments to approach the elimination of nuclear
weapons in terms of "a new generation of rights," which would include the
right to peace for all peoples. He quoted the words of Martin Luther King
who said: "I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation
must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear
annihilation."
Senator Roche referred to the Middle Powers Initiative's call for the
Nuclear Weapon States to "affirm unequivocally that there are legally
binding obligations to engage in good faith negotiations to eliminate
nuclear weapons and to commence these negotiations as a matter of utmost
urgency." He also called for nuclear weapons to be taken off alert status, a
No-First-Use pledge, and legal assurances that nuclear weapons would never
be used against non-nuclear weapon states.
He added that the Nuclear Weapon States "should also acknowledge that the
NPT regime cannot endure indefinitely if a few States insist that nuclear
weapons provide them with unique security benefits while denying these
alleged benefits to others."
The text of the Senate Motion reads:
"That the Senate recommends that the Government of Canada urge the Nuclear
Weapon States to reaffirm their unequivocal commitment to take action
towards the total elimination of their nuclear weapons, as called for by the
Non-proliferation Treaty, which will be reviewed April 24-May 19, 2000".
For further information, contact:
Tel. (613) 943-9559

Review of Non-Proliferation Treaty:
Motion to Urge Nuclear Weapon States to Reaffirm Commitment Adopted
Hon. Douglas Roche, pursuant to notice of March 21, 2000, moved: That the
Senate recommends that the Government of Canada urge the Nuclear Weapon
States to reaffirm their unequivocal commitment to take action towards the
total elimination of their nuclear weapons, as called for by the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, which will be reviewed April 24 to May 19, 2000.
He said: Honourable senators, in this presentation, I wish to make three
points: first, why the issue is urgent; second, what the NPT review
conference should do; and third, Canada's role in advancing the nuclear
disarmament agenda.
First, the urgency. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Americans and
Russians started reducing their nuclear arms, most people thought the
nuclear weapons problem had evaporated with the Cold War. However, the
problem did not go away. In fact, today, despite the lesser numbers than at
the height of the Cold War, the threat to humanity posed by the existing
35,000 nuclear weapons is rated by many experts as worse than during the
Cold War.
The U.S. Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The U.S. is
preparing to deploy a missile defence system over the objections of Russia
and China, who protest that this will start a new arms race. India is
preparing to deploy nuclear weapons in the air, on land and at sea.
Pakistan, which has successfully tested nuclear weapons, is now ruled by the
military. Meaningful discussions at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva
are deadlocked. The Russian Duma has not ratified START II, and Russia has
published a revised national security doctrine that broadens the possible
scenarios in which Russia would use nuclear weapons.
Honourable senators, the gains made in the past decade on reducing the
dangers posed by nuclear weapons are being wiped out. UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan warned that the non-proliferation agenda is in, in his words,
"deplorable stagnation." He said:
It is even more disheartening to hear Nuclear Weapon States
reiterate their nuclear doctrines, postures and plans which envisage
reliance on nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.
Since the only use of a nuclear weapon occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 55
years ago, most of the world has no memory of what nuclear weapons do. They
are not just an advanced form of ordinary weaponry. They have the power to
decimate the natural environment which has sustained humanity from the
beginning of time. Nuclear weapons produce lethal levels of heat and blast,
produce radiation and radioactive fallout, exterminate civilian populations,
produce social disintegration, contaminate and destroy the food chain, and
continue for decades after their use to induce health-related problems. This
is a staggering compilation of damage that no amount of obfuscation, such as
referring to unintended collateral damage, can cover up. This is why the
former president of the World Court, Mohammed Bedjaoui of Algeria, called
nuclear weapons "the ultimate evil." In fact, he added that the existence of
nuclear weapons challenges "the very existence of humanitarian law."
During the acrimonious years of the Cold War, with the emphasis on the
military doctrine of nuclear deterrence as a constant justification for the
nuclear arms buildup, the public seemed blinded to the horror of what
nuclear weapons were all about; but now, in the post-Cold War era
characterized by an East-West partnership, there is no excuse for shielding
the public from the assault upon life itself that nuclear weapons represent.

Second, the NPT review conference. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, which came
into existence in 1970, is the largest arms control and disarmament treaty
in the world, with 187 nations as signatories. Its central provision,
Article VI, calls for good faith negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament
and to general disarmament under strict and effective international control.
In fact, the NPT was constituted as a bargain between the five nuclear
weapons states of the day - the U.S., the Soviet Union, now Russia, the
U.K., France and China - and with the non-nuclear weapon states. In return
for the nuclear weapon states giving up their nuclear weapons, the
non-nuclear weapon states promised not to acquire them.
As the years mounted and the nuclear weapon states refused to negotiate
going to zero, India and Pakistan charged that the NPT was a discriminatory
treaty and refused to sign it. Now, with their tests of 1998, India and
Pakistan have openly joined the nuclear weapons club. Israel has also not
signed the NPT and has become nuclear-weapons capable. Thus, there are now
eight nuclear weapons states, the five principal ones being the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council.
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The International Court of Justice, in its landmark 1996 advisory opinion,
said this was unacceptable and too dangerous to tolerate, and unanimously
called for the conclusion of negotiations on nuclear disarmament.
At the forthcoming NPT review conference, the records of the nuclear weapon
states will be carefully examined. It will be shown that the United States
and the United Kingdom have made some reductions. Russia, France and China
have not.
Moreover, efforts to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons have regressed
since 1995. The U.S. indicated, in its 1997 Presidential Decision Directive
60, that nuclear weapons remain the cornerstone of its security policy.
NATO, at its Washington summit in April 1999, reaffirmed that nuclear
weapons "will continue to fulfil an essential role" in its strategic
concept, although, at the urging of Canada, Germany and Norway, the alliance
agreed in principle last December to an internal review of its nuclear
policy.
We must remember that the NPT, which was indefinitely extended in 1995,
legally obliges its signatories to negotiate the elimination of nuclear
weapons, not merely their reduction. This legal point has also been made in
a political manner by the New Agenda Coalition of seven middle-power nations
- Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden -
whose resolution at the United Nations last fall: Calls upon the Nuclear
Weapons States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy
and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay
in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear
disarmament, to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT.
This resolution was adopted by a vote of 111 for, 13 against, and 39
abstentions, with seven of the eight nuclear weapon states voting against
it. China abstained. Moreover, the western nuclear weapons states campaigned
against it and have intimidated their NATO partners not to support it. To
their credit, Canada and 13 other NATO members last fall at least abstained
on the resolution.
Honourable senators, it is critical to global security that the NPT survive
until a comprehensive plan for eliminating all nuclear weapons is
negotiated. This means that the nuclear weapon states, recognizing the
importance of the NPT to their own security, must be committed, without
equivocation, to fulfilling their Article VI obligations.
To this end, the Middle Powers Initiative calls upon the nuclear weapon
states to take the following main steps.
First, they should affirm unequivocally that there are legally binding
obligations to engage in good faith negotiations, to eliminate nuclear
weapons and to commence these negotiations as a matter of utmost urgency.
Then they should take clear steps to diminish the salience of nuclear
weapons by reducing national and allied reliance on them by, for example,
taking them off hair-trigger alert, pledging never to use them first,
negotiating a legally binding agreement which assures non-nuclear weapon
states that nuclear weapons will not be used against them, and committing to
a prohibition on the design or development of new nuclear weapons. Then they
should also acknowledge that the NPT regime cannot endure indefinitely if a
few states insist that nuclear weapons provide them with unique security
benefits while denying these alleged benefits to others. Finally, honourable
senators, let me speak of Canada's role. In recent weeks, two important
conferences of NGO experts have been held in Canada, designed to assist the
Government of Canada to play the important role it is capable of at the NPT
review conference.
A government consultation with civil society, held on February 3 and 4,
heard calls for Canada to throw its support unreservedly behind the New
Agenda Coalition. Some nations in NATO, observing Canada's efforts to get a
meaningful review in NATO of the alliance's nuclear weapons policies, have
taken to calling Canada a "nuclear nag". "More power to Canada", the
participants said at the conference, and then they posed this urgent
question: "How long will Canada keep the New Agenda Coalition at arm's
length in the interest of working to change NATO from within?"
A second meeting, this one a joint seminar on March 18 of the Canadian
Pugwash Group and Science for Peace, emphasized that Canada should work
alongside the New Agenda Coalition at the NPT review conference, seek
reaffirmation of the NPT Article VI commitment, and ensure that governments
make new commitments to accelerate the nuclear disarmament process. Canadian
Pugwash and Science for Peace believe that Canada can, and must, provide
sustained diplomatic representation to the nuclear weapon states to carry
out an unequivocal commitment to nuclear disarmament. Accountability on
commitments must be demonstrated by specific, concrete measures. Honourable
senators, I have discussed the urgency of the situation, the importance of
the NPT review and what Canada should do. The spread of nuclear weapons is
one of the most terrible threats faced by the human race. The
non-proliferation treaty must be saved from unravelling. Canada, as a strong
adherent of the NPT, has an opportunity and an obligation to protect this
vital treaty.
I commend this motion to you.
Hon. Sheila Finestone: Honourable senators, I am pleased to rise in support
of the motion from our colleague who, as we all know, was a very respected
member of the Canadian team, Ambassador for Disarmament for the Canadian
government, and led them to the UN 1985 conference on the non-proliferation
treaty with respect to nuclear weapons. We are very fortunate to have this
gentleman in our midst as a senator. That he would ring the alarm bells is
very much in keeping with the kind of role he has played as a conscience for
Canada and the world in these areas.
Senator Roche has asked: Why is this issue urgent? Is it a major concern? Is
it a major issue for Canada? I may be enlarging his thought, but I believe
that the thought was there, and I am sure one of his questions is: Since
Canada holds that seat at the Security Council in the United Nations, what
is the government doing to address that role?
Honourable senators, there are many issues and many threats that are very
wide-ranging in this world, whether we are discussing the victimization,
one-by-one, of people in civil conflict, or the spectre of mass annihilation
from nuclear weapons, and they are all of serious concern. These threats
with respect to nuclear weapons, at their most basic, imperil all humanity.
Our human security is at risk.
Often, people say that the answer is to build walls, because the threat does
not really affect us, those nuclear arms are not so close by. Well,
honourable senators, they are. They are just beyond our border, as Senator
Roche pointed out, and it is a very important issue. We cannot turn away,
ignore, retreat or shut the world out. It is not possible.
The forces of globalization are another matter. The advances in technology,
the entire question of transportation and communications, rule out any form
of isolation for us as Canadians. They should be an incentive for us to
support the work that has been undertaken by our government and by our
leadership.
I sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the other House. We were directed
by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to undertake an in-depth study on nuclear
proliferation and the role that Canada could play before achieving a seat on
the Security Council.
I recall joining a group of parliamentarians who were invited to Germany to
discuss issues of nuclear non-proliferation and Canada's role. There was
very serious concern about the position our standing committee had taken at
that time. One of the things I learned from that experience is that
isolation is not desirable, nor possible, and the forces that make those
issues problems for others also make them problems for us. They highlight
our common humanity and connect us in a common destiny.
We have sought, in a sense, to project Canadian values about caring on to
the world stage. It was T.S. Eliot who said that April is the cruelest
month. If you are a minister of foreign affairs right now, and if you were
about to move into the hot seat or chair of the Security Council on April 1,
I think you would find that April is a crucial month. Next month, an entire
confluence of events will take place: Canada's presidency of the UN Security
Council and the West African Conference on War-Affected Children that Canada
is co-sponsoring with Ghana. One of our honourable senators, Senator
Pearson, is very involved in that the latter. Also, the Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference is about to take place, which the Honourable
Senator Roche has brought to your attention. All eyes will be focused on all
these issues. However, I do not think any of us realizes how vitally
important this Non-Proliferation Treaty is with respect to human security.
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Honourable senators, it is impossible for us not to recognize that we must
promote human security at the UN Security Council. That is the way we can
best address the threats to our own safety, to the safety of our families,
to the safety of our society and to the safety of humanity worldwide. We
cannot live in isolated ignorance and lack of understanding concerning the
things that we must do.
Honourable senators, we can derive little satisfaction from the progress we
have made thus far. Do not think there has not been progress, because there
has; however, there is no satisfaction while the risk of nuclear
annihilation looms over our collective safety. There is, quite frankly, no
greater potential menace to human security.
The risks associated with nuclear arms appear to have faded from the radar
screen. Do we hear anyone talking about it? Have we listened to the debates
in the United States and to those men who think that they can lead the world
by becoming president of the United States? Did they say one word about
international affairs of any consequence? Certainly there was not a word
about nuclear disarmament or the potential impact of nuclear arms.
The Honourable Senator Roche said that there are 35,000 active bombs out
there, all of which are stronger than the bomb that detonated over
Hiroshima. We must be concerned about this.
The risks associated with nuclear arms seem to have faded from international
concern. The urgency for action has ebbed, and the structures that we have
built to manage the threats are increasingly on shaky ground. We seem to
have lost our way. I find it quite incredible that there are strong lobby
groups out there who have not lost their way, who have seen the light and
who were referred to by the honourable senator in his speech. We must
encompass that will and that energy to move ahead and to ensure, by acting
resolutely and together, that nuclear arms control and disarmament takes
place.
Honourable senators, I do not think it can be accomplished overnight. Let us
be under no illusion about that. However, the dangers are real enough. The
threat to horizontal proliferation is evident. Nuclear testing in India and
Pakistan has added a frightening new dimension to political instability in
that region. Vertical proliferation, however, remains a challenge. There has
been undeniable progress in nuclear disarmament, but the trend by some to
justify retaining nuclear arsenals as a defence against other weapons or on
economic grounds is a real worry.
Those of us who were at the conference of the IPU in Brussels will remember
the discussion about why we cannot expect all the holders of nuclear weapons
and missiles to get rid of them in a hurry. It is hard just to get rid of
them. The prospect of the illicit transfer of nuclear weapons is very
disturbing.
Honourable senators, I hope that, wherever possible, we will raise the issue
and that we will raise it with members of the other place. It will involve a
sensitive undertaking, once again, of the population so that we can develop
the political will to move our people forward.
I should like to remind honourable senators that Canada remains firmly
committed to the role of nuclear non-proliferation. An effective NPT is the
centrepiece of a non-proliferation regime. There are only four states that
have not signed it. It is the most widely adhered to international security
court in history. In a month's time, we will go to an NPT review conference,
the first since its extension in 1995. The success of this conference is
crucial. The future course of nuclear weapons, attitudes, policies and
arsenals is at stake. I suggest, however, that the outlook is quite clouded.
There is a sense that the fundamental deal at the heart of the treaty - a
promise by those without nuclear weapons not to acquire them in exchange for
an undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to eventually get rid of them -
is not being respected by some on either side. There is, likewise, a feeling
that the commitment by the nuclear weapon states to the concept of
"permanence with accountability" - that is, extending the NPT indefinitely
in exchange for greater accountability by others - is not being met. In
response to the third point made by the Honourable Senator Roche, which is
about Canada's role in the entire area, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has
said there is a three-fold response: securing agreement to an updated
five-year action program with new, concrete objectives for disarmament and
non-proliferation; seeking a more robust review and assessment process to
give full meaning to the principle of permanence with accountability; and
promoting universal adherence to the NPT, with renewed commitment by treaty
member states to live up to their obligations. A strengthened NPT is
indispensable; so is reinforcing other parts of the non-proliferation
regime.
Honourable senators, there are other issues that we will not deal with
today, but Canada is pressing in all these areas. In these circumstances, it
is not surprising that there should be concern. Canada fully concurs and
shares in the worries expressed and the point of view you have raised today.
I suggest, however, that unilateral efforts to build defences against these
dangers are unlikely to provide a lasting security and might possibly
increase insecurity with what is happening around the world.
The other crucial factor in all these efforts is the role of individual
citizens and civil society. Political will and energy are required to
restore vital momentum to raise the issue of nuclear weapons control and
reduction that is not generated in the stale basements of the United Nations
or certainly in the closed council chambers in Geneva. In democracies such
as ours, there is a vital and important role to be played by citizens. In
order to capture the minds and the hearts of people, we must work
collaboratively with the NGOs. They are a vital and important force. I would
commend the NGOs to continue their effort. In discussion with Senator Roche
earlier, I asked how we can tackle the notion that we should be moving
forward with great energy. Perhaps we could all face the cabinet and tell
them that this has to stop now. He said that the only way we will move this
forward is to ensure that the NGOs gather 10,000 to 20,000 people, line them
up on Parliament Hill and yell. I do not think that will get us very far
now, but I do think that tens of thousands of people need to get out there
and let MPs know that this is where we want to go. Our Minister of Foreign
Affairs certainly knows. He has provided an undertaking to make things work
well at the UN Security Council, and we wish him well in trying to meet the
goals and aspirations of Canadians.
An important comment was made at the UN General Assembly in its Declaration
on the Prevention of Nuclear Catastrophe in 1981, which summarized all the
foregoing facts. A senator brought that to our attention. It stated that:
All the horrors of past wars and other calamities that have befallen people
would pale in comparison with what is inherent in the use of nuclear weapons
capable of destroying civilization on earth.
This is the ultimate evil.
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Honourable senators, I hope we will move on this motion. It is well founded
and most fortuitous at this particular time. I hope the discussions go well
on April 24 and afterwards.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
Hon. No'l A. Kinsella (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable
senators, on behalf of the opposition, I commend our colleague Senator Roche
for continuing with an initiative in this field in which he has already
distinguished himself and in which he has brought credit to his country. We
certainly support the recommendations that the Senate would give to the
Government of Canada urging that the nuclear weapons states give their
unequivocal commitment to take action towards the total elimination of their
nuclear weapons, as called for by the Non-Proliferation Treaty which, as
already mentioned, will be reviewed this April and May.
In addressing this motion and the recommendation that it makes to the
Government of Canada, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King who
once stated: "I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation
must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear
annihilation."
Those words came to mind as I reflected during these two excellent
interventions this afternoon. I wondered about the frame of reference, the
model of analysis at the beginning of the 21st century within which the
question of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons ought to be cast. The
question I ask is whether the paradigm of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s
is the appropriate paradigm for framing international action to achieve the
objective of a world that is free of nuclear arms.
It seems to me that there are some very important principles but,
effectively, the international community did develop during that era. On the
one hand, the dynamics of international politics then demonstrated a
step-by-step approach to dealing with the early attempts to limit nuclear
arms. On the other hand, it was facilitated perhaps in more recent times by
the geo-political change in the world community, particularly with the fall
of the Iron Curtain.
Perhaps we should review what was happening then. That might be helpful as
our government and other governments attempt to deal with eradication from
the world community of nuclear arms.
We have perceived in the human rights field a move from a first generation
of human rights dealing with civil and political rights issues, to a second
generation of rights dealing with economic, social and cultural rights. Now
a new generation of rights has been achieved by the world community in
recent times and it has been referred to as solidarity rights, environmental
rights and rights to peace. In the world community, our international
culture in the year 2000 is the culture, to use the jargon, of "the global
village." It may be jargon but it is true.
Not only is there a political restructuring, an economic structuring of
which we often speak, there is a world cultural restructuring which is
taking place.
Perhaps our government and other governments can attempt to conceptualize
new world policy and the elimination of nuclear weapons in terms of this new
generation of rights which speaks to the solidarity of all people. These
weapons of mass destruction can affect each and every one of us on planet
Earth. This is why it is a solidarity issue. I simply submit that
proposition.
The non-governmental organizations which have been referenced obviously play
a critical role, not only in this area but in so many other areas. Sometimes
it would appear that non-governmental organizations are ahead of
governments. We need not be surprised by that. Although some policy-makers
resist the pressures which are brought to bear on public issues by
non-governmental organizations, generally speaking, all governments attend
quite judiciously to non-governmental organizations' comments. We should
remind ourselves of one of the things which most impressed Alexis de
Tocqueville upon his visit to America in the last century. He wrote of it in
his book on America and he stated his belief that the key to American
democracy and freedom was the existence and the activity of so many
non-governmental organizations.
I should like to underscore Senator Finestone's comments, not simply because
it is the politically correct thing to say, but rather because the role of
the non-governmental organizations speaks directly to international
solidarity.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators,
to adopt this motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Motion agreed to.