FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 5, 1998

• 0910

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting to order, please.

Before I go into the introduction of our witnesses, I believe, Mr. Assadourian, you had a request of the chair.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, everybody.

I think next Tuesday, Mr. Chairman, we have an agenda to continue on this subject. I would suggest that during the first period of the meeting we devote a couple hours to the situation in Iraq, because the situation is getting from bad to worse. I think it's incumbent on us to sit down for a couple of hours and discuss the issue before government makes any decision to go into or stay out of the conflict in the Middle East.

The Chairman: Ms. Hilchie, I wonder....

[Translation]

For the information of other committee members, Mr. Assadourian asked that our next meeting on Tuesday start with an hour or half- hour devoted to a discussion of the situation in Iraq. It's an urgent situation and we should be informed.

Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): I hope that the Chairman will be a bit more open than the government if we have a debate on the situation in Iraq.

The Chairman: In spite of the allegations made in the Star, I am always very open to suggestions.

Mr. Daniel Turp: Coming from a Liberal member...

[English]

A voice: He's doing it now.

The Chairman: Mr. Grewal, would you be open to our having an introductory discussion, at least, an opportunity to spend an hour on the issue of Iraq at the next meeting?

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Sure.

The Chairman: Mr. Turp.

[Translation]

I suppose there is no objection to spending time on this?

Mr. Daniel Turp: Yes, we would go along with having a debate here on the Iraq situation in the absence of such a debate in the House of Commons.

[English]

The Chairman: I don't see any objection from anybody on the committee. I think that's a very timely recommendation. Thank you for making it, Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): It should not be understood there is any dichotomy between this committee and the House of Commons. The Prime Minister's statement is a little different from what has been suggested here this morning.

The Chairman: I'm sorry, could you....

Mr. Ted McWhinney: I'm saying that it should not be viewed as a substitute for the House of Commons' action, and the Prime Minister's statement yesterday indicated the possibilities for the House of Commons at an appropriate time.

The Chairman: Right, but I think Mr. Assadourian's suggestion was that we might take the opportunity to get some information, be informed as members of the committee.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: Agreed. Excellent idea.

The Chairman: I don't think it was a suggestion that we would replace the House to debate.

So with that suggestion, the clerk will either put it on for the normal time, or we may try to meet Tuesday afternoon; we'll work it in. But it is understood to be an information meeting. Thank you very much.

I would like to introduce our witnesses for our study on Canada's policy on nuclear non-proliferation. Particularly I would like to welcome Mr. Roche, who has been good enough to appear before the committee before.

Thank you very much for your book, Mr. Roche. We appreciate that. We'll certainly have an opportunity to read it.

We have also: from Project Ploughshares, Mr. Robinson; from Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Mr. Morgan; from Physicians for Global Survival, Ms. Grisdale. Do you want to join us at the table?

Ms. Debbie Grisdale (Executive Director, Physicians for Global Survival): No, Dr. Trouton will be speaking.

The Chairman: All right. We've met Dr. Trouton before as well. It's nice to see you again, sir.

Then we have Canadian Peace Alliance, with Mr. Klopstock and with Judith Berlyn, who is with the Westmount Initiative for Peace. So that makes five witnesses.

If you could make your introductory comments 10 minutes at a maximum, then that will leave time for the members to ask questions. I'll be a little bit rigorous, and if you're going much over 10 minutes, I'll point that out to you. So please, it's not to be rude or anything; it will just give more time for questions and answers.

I wonder if I could start with Mr. Roche.

• 0915

Mr. Douglas Roche (Chair, Canadian Pugwash Group and Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Translation]

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade for giving me this opportunity to appear before you.

[English]

I'm speaking on behalf of the Canadian Pugwash Group, which I chair, and the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which I also chair.

My first word is one of congratulations to the government and Parliament for the leadership Canada took in developing the new anti-personnel landmines treaty. This is an historic accomplishment.

I would like to address the subject of nuclear weapons under three main headings. First is the comparative risk to world security, second is Canada's obligation and opportunity, and third is the growing abolition movement.

The nuclear weapons situation in the world is at a critical stage. Nearly a decade after the end of the Cold War more than 35,000 nuclear weapons remain in the world. No new nuclear negotiations are taking place. The conference on disarmament is paralyzed. The Russian Duma, during NATO's expansion, has not ratified START II. START III is immobilized. Some Russian politicians and militarists, concerned about Russia's crumbling conventional force structure, are once again talking of nuclear weapons as a vital line of defence for Russia.

Even if START II were ratified, there would still be at least 17,000 nuclear weapons of all kinds remaining in 2007. A detailed breakdown of these figures is contained in my brief and also in my book, to which you kindly referred, sir.

Despite the indefinite extension of the NPT and the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a new technology race in the quest for more innovative nuclear weapons led by the United States has broken out. Since nuclear weapons states so clearly intend to keep producing better designed nuclear weapons, there is virtually no hope that other nations will forgo seeking the technology to allow them to keep up with this race. The world is poised to enter the 21st century in a cold peace atmosphere, in which the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will go unratified by some of the required states and the NPT may begin to unravel.

The continued retention of nuclear weapons by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, who insist they are essential to their security and that of their allies while denying the same right to others, is inherently unstable. This is the essential point made by the International Court of Justice, whose unanimous call for the conclusion of negotiations continues to be rejected by the western nuclear states and the bulk of NATO.

NATO, although redoing the alliance's strategic concept for presentation to NATO's next summit meeting in 1999, has stated “We confirm that nuclear forces continue to play an essential role in NATO strategy and that their fundamental purpose is political”.

It is sometimes argued that the elimination of nuclear weapons would lead to a return of conventional wars between major industrial nations, but as Lord Carver, former U.K. Chief of Defence Staff, argues, the present situation of merely modest nuclear reductions between the U.S. and Russia is bound to lead to more declared and undeclared nuclear states, some with less reliable methods of control than those exercised by existing nuclear states. The risk of either the intentional or the accidental explosion of nuclear weapons will then have increased.

In the opposite scenario, an unequivocal commitment by the nuclear weapons states to commence negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons would itself be a confidence building measure to prepare the way for the development of a global legal and verification regime to sustain the abolition of nuclear weapons.

While it would be rash to dismiss the possibility of future conventional wars, what is the risk of such wars occurring in an international climate preparing for peace rather than for war? In other words, the risks of not trying to eliminate nuclear weapons are much greater than the risks of trying to do so.

• 0920

The process of nuclear disarmament cannot be left to the nuclear weapons states alone. Article VI of the NPT obliges all states to negotiate nuclear disarmament as well as general and complete disarmament. These two elements are not dependent on each other.

Because of the immense dangers they could inflict on human civilization, the elimination of nuclear weapons must be given the highest negotiating priority.

No one country by itself can move the nuclear weapons states. A focused campaign must be launched by the important middle-power nations with the will-power to assert their right to influence the common security agenda and the political will, underpinned by public support, not to be deflected or dismissed by the nuclear weapons states.

With the end of the Cold War, the day of the middle powers has arrived. The abolition of nuclear weapons, the central element in the global governance quest for common security, must now be taken up by a new coalition of middle-power states. This preventive diplomacy can save the nuclear weapons states from the folly of their present course. This coalition must be formed by a break-out of the standard UN groupings of east, west and non-aligned that were born of the Cold War ideologies. The coalition must be of states that are important, influential, have good records in seeking disarmament and can get along. Working together, a new coalition could have the capacity to play an unprecedented role for peace.

Given its leadership at the NPT review, Canada bears a special responsibility to take a leading role in the development of a new coalition to work for the global elimination of nuclear weapons. As a firm proponent of the NPT and a member of NATO, Canada has a right and a duty to speak out for the elimination of nuclear weapons and to play a leading role in attaining this objective.

NATO's continued deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe, along with a refusal to respect the World Court and enter into comprehensive negotiations, is in direct violation of the pledge made by the nuclear weapons states at the time of the indefinite extension of the NPT, which was to pursue with determination systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons.

Although NATO operates in great secrecy, it is clear that the alliance has no intention of renouncing nuclear weapons, is determined to maintain a nuclear war fighting capability and is prepared to use low-yield nuclear warheads first.

It is unacceptable that NATO even refuses to release the terms of reference used for its current review of the strategic concept. The expansion of such a nuclear armed alliance is not an aid but a challenge to the development of peaceful relations with Russia.

The actions of NATO put Canada in conflict with its own stated intentions of working to expand the rule of law internationally. How can Canada follow its pledge to uphold international law when NATO insists on solidarity to oppose UN resolutions to start negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons?

The World Court has changed the dynamics of Canada's participation in a nuclear-armed alliance and must be responded to.

Canada should begin by urging NATO to revise its policy so that NATO will no longer rely on nuclear weapons as—what they call it—“an essential means of security”. A start on this policy is to remove all nuclear weapons from European soil.

Canada should press for the following immediate steps to be taken by the nuclear weapons powers: taking all nuclear forces off alert status; committing themselves to no first use; ending the deployment of non-strategic weapons outside their own territories; ending the production of weapons-grade fissile material; and declaring support for additional nuclear-weapons-free zones.

Mr. Chairman, there can be no doubt that a historic momentum is building for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Earlier this week, in an unprecedented action, nearly 100 civilian leaders around the world, including 36 past or present heads of government, issued a statement calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada, former President Jimmy Carter of the United States, and former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of Germany were among this lengthy list of signers.

• 0925

The international civilian statement followed a similar one a year ago issued by 61 generals and admirals who had served in a leading military capacity in 17 countries. They declared that long-term international nuclear policy must be based on the declared principle of continuous, complete and irrevocable elimination of nuclear weapons. The prestigious—

The Chairman: Mr. Roche, we're well over the 10 minutes. I know there is more to your text, but since we do have the text before us—

Mr. Douglas Roche: I will conclude by going to my last paragraph, Mr. Chairman—

The Chairman: Thank you very much. I appreciate that, sir.

Mr. Douglas Roche: —noting along the way that this momentum for the abolition of nuclear weapons is building up around the world.

Mr. Chairman, I respectfully ask the committee to concentrate on the heart of the issue: the assault on humanity that nuclear weapons represent. Humanity provides our common bond. People cared about landmines. They understood the issue in human terms. The media, awakened by the celebrity intervention of Princess Diana, intensified their concern. The 26,000 deaths and maimings per year from landmines were presented in the human terms of horror. So too must the deaths of millions in minutes that would result from the explosion of a single nuclear weapon. It is not that people don't care about megadeaths. Rather, they have forgotten the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and think about the issue in abstract terms, devoid of the intense human feelings for life itself that nuclear weapons ought to generate.

I ask you and the members of the committee to register the horror, the deaths and the desolation, the inhuman and incalculable after-effects of the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons must be seen for what they are: weapons of mass murder. They violate every precept and rule of humanitarian law. They cannot be justified. They are, as the former president of the International Court of Justice said, the ultimate evil. They must be condemned and abolished. Their continued existence represents a moral, legal and political challenge of paramount importance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Roche. And again, excuse me for hustling you along, but I think it's important for us to get to the questions, as you can appreciate.

I'd just like to draw to your attention one fact. You know that Mr. Moher came before the committee. He was in camera because we wanted to give the government an opportunity to inform us of any sensitive security issues that were involved, but he did provide a public statement covering many of the issues that you covered, and we can give you a copy of that if you wish. Certainly the committee staff will make it available for all the participants here today, because it's a fairly comprehensive review of the government's position. We certainly intend to hear Ambassador Moher in a public hearing as well in order to give an opportunity for you and for other organizations to be here. We'll get you a copy of that statement if you'd like to have it.

Also, on behalf of the committee members, I'd like to welcome our colleague Mr. Robinson back with us, somewhat bloodied, but unbowed as always. Welcome, sir. Glad to have you here.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear.

The Chairman: We now turn to Mr. Bill Robinson.

Mr. Bill Robinson (National Staff, Project Ploughshares): I am pleased to be back in front of the committee again. I appeared before you in March.

Project Ploughshares would like to commend the standing committee for undertaking this important and timely review of Canada's nuclear weapons policies.

Our brief is relatively long. I will not try to read the whole thing to you, but I will try to do a little bit from the introduction and then focus on the section on the nuclear weapons convention.

The end of the Cold War did not bring an end to the threat nuclear weapons posed to humanity and to the world. The number of nuclear weapons worldwide has been cut in half during the past decade, declining from a peak of around 70,000 to about 35,000 or fewer today, but the destructive power of today's arsenal remains enormous, the equivalent of half a million nuclear bombs of the size that destroyed Hiroshima.

I don't know how many of you have our brief in front of you, but there is a figure in it that shows the destructive power of today's arsenals, at 8,000 megatons, or 3,000 times what was released during the Second World War. Even if current arms control plans are realized, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world will be in the neighbourhood of 15,000 to 20,000 by the year 2007, with a destructive power in the neighbourhood of 200,000 to 300,000 Hiroshima bombs. So we're talking about an incredible destructive force that could be set off literally at any time.

• 0930

The recommendations that Project Ploughshares is making in this brief are three. They are that the Canadian government advocate immediate steps to reduce the nuclear threat, including removing all nuclear forces from alert and concluding agreements on no-first-use and non-use against non-nuclear states; call for initiation of negotiations on a convention to eliminate all nuclear weapons; and renounce the nuclear umbrella for Canada and end Canadian support for nuclear weapons.

The section I'd like to focus on is under the second of those, supporting a nuclear weapons convention, which starts on page 5 of the brief at the bottom. Our position is that the Canadian government should adopt nuclear abolition as a real objective in today's world and call on the nuclear weapons states and other states to begin negotiations on a convention to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Canada's current nuclear disarmament efforts are focused almost entirely on limitation measures, notably the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the proposed treaty on stopping the production of fissionable material for nuclear weapons. Such measures are very valuable, but they do not go far enough. The time has come for Canada to join with other countries in calling for a nuclear weapons convention that would lay out the framework for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

I haven't seen what Ambassador Moher said to this committee on Tuesday, but I have read what he said in October 1997, which is quoted in the brief, and I assume it's quite similar. He's taken the position for the Canadian government—

The Chairman: You're referring to his Pugwash statement, are you?

Mr. Bill Robinson: That's right.

The Chairman: Yes, it was quite similar.

Mr. Bill Robinson: He said at that time that proposals for a nuclear weapons convention: ...are premature at best. This is not to say that Canada is opposed to such a “convention”; rather we see it as a potential step at an appropriate stage in the process of nuclear disarmament but not as a comprehensive first step in that process.

We cannot agree with this position. There are several reasons that the start of negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention is an appropriate and indeed highly desirable step at this time. I'd like to just refer to five reasons.

First of all, agreement to begin negotiations on such a convention would dramatically improve the international security climate. By helping to lay the ghosts of the Cold War to rest and build a positive non-military relationship with Russia, it would help allay Russian concerns about NATO expansion, for example. It would dramatically strengthen the legitimacy of the global non-proliferation regime and make it practically unassailable. It would underline the growing commitment of states to respect and strengthen international law, which, as the International Court of Justice noted, already obligates states to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

Secondly, nuclear weapons convention negotiations would provide a legitimizing context for many of the more limited measures that are currently being pursued by the Canadian government and other governments. That includes in particular the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the fissionable materials ban. These measures would be much more legitimate in the context of nuclear weapons convention negotiations and would be much more likely to get support if they were explicitly or implicitly incorporated into that process.

Thirdly, convention negotiations would put on the table crucial abolition-related measures, such as the development of stringent warhead and fissionable material accounting procedures, that are not currently the subject of negotiations at all. These things should be discussed now. These are things that should be under way right now. This is one of the important things that nuclear weapons convention discussions, even the negotiations, would get started.

Fourthly, negotiations on a convention would ensure that the interim steps that do get taken are in the right direction. We have steps being taken under the START agreements and so forth, but negotiations on a convention would help to determine, for example, that the preferred configuration of the smaller nuclear arsenals that would probably exist as we proceeded towards full abolition was the appropriate configuration that we needed. It might be significantly different from the configuration that's currently being pursued in arms control talks.

I've given one small example in the brief, and it may or may not pertain to what will really happen, but it's an example of one possibility.

• 0935

Surplus missile silos that are currently being destroyed might be utilized instead as secure storage facilities for warheads being removed in the course of various de-alerting procedures. These silos are potentially a very good place to store warheads. They would be secure against attack, for example, and you would be somewhat more secure in questions of stability of the balance that would exist as you were doing this. But they're currently being destroyed in the course of the START agreements. It's a legitimate act, but they're not thinking ahead, and they're not thinking ahead because they're not doing the negotiations on how to get to zero. They're not even thinking about it.

The final reason is that agreement to negotiate a nuclear weapons convention would be a major step forward in itself, psychologically, in the message it sends. It would signal concurrence by the nuclear weapons states that nuclear weapons are not essential, that they're in fact unnecessary and detrimental to security and that the fundamental objective from this time forward must be to eliminate them as soon as possible in a secure and verifiable manner.

This would mark a fundamental psychological turning point in the de-legitimization of nuclear weapons and would have immediate consequences for existing nuclear doctrine and plans by providing further impetus for the implementation of the kinds of measures that Ambassador Roche and others have talked about, which is de-alerting and getting rid of tactical nuclear weapons and so forth. That would dramatically reduce the risks we currently face with the arsenals that are in place right now.

Ploughshares would like to emphasize that we believe those immediate steps can and should be taken regardless of whether Canada moves ahead on pushing a nuclear weapons convention and regardless of whether such negotiations are begun in the near future. We believe it's very important that they begin, but it's also important that these immediate measures be taken. And they can be taken independently of moving forward. However, moving forward on a convention would, we believe, add impetus to taking those immediate steps too.

None of that is to suggest that a nuclear weapons convention would be an instantaneous process. It would probably take considerable time. The major stumbling block is lack of political will, and if that were achieved, I believe it could be done rapidly, but no one should be surprised if it does take a long time. In that sense this might resemble the negotiations on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which took a long time to produce concrete results but even by their very existence helped contribute to the end of the Cold War.

I'd like to quote the Canberra commission in talking about the necessity to put zero on the table as the objective. They say the commitment by the nuclear powers “to proceed with all deliberate speed to a world without nuclear weapons” is the “first requirement for movement towards a nuclear weapon free world”. They say: “A commitment of this kind would transform the whole process.”

I think that's very true, and that's why it's important to talk about a convention on the elimination of nuclear weapons and to get that on the international table.

The annual sessions of the United Nations General Assembly of course provide an important opportunity for Canada to demonstrate support for a nuclear weapons convention and for negotiations on one and to encourage other states to show their support. In 1997, as you probably know, we voted against Resolution 52/38 O, which called for negotiations on such a convention, but a similar resolution will come before the 1998 session and in future years, and Canada should vote in favour of this resolution and consider co-sponsoring it.

Thank you very much for giving me this time to speak to you. I look forward to answering your questions on this part of our brief or on any other part of our brief.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Morgan.

Mr. David R. Morgan (President, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms): Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade for this opportunity to appear before you. I'm a geologist and a member of the British Columbia Professional Engineers Association. I am speaking on behalf of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms as the national president of our organization.

I appear before your committee today to make a presentation on the threats of the use of nuclear weapons during the 16 known nuclear crises of the Cold War. I think two important roles for a veterans organization are to remind and to warn.

• 0940

In your studies of nuclear policy, I think you will find it useful to see the real policies of nuclear weapons states in action during these crises. I'll introduce this topic by pointing out two important features of these crises. The first is unreality. Has anyone here seen a nuclear weapon or seen a nuclear explosion? No? Neither have I, but I have experienced the effects of one.

As a geologist, I was doing a job in Nevada, and Las Vegas is a very useful point to work from because it's so well serviced by airlines. I was in my room at the Best Western Hotel in Las Vegas on April 30, 1987, at 6.30 a.m., and my bed began to shake. Not violently, just gently backwards and forwards like this. I looked at a lamp hanging in the room. It had a pointer on it, and the pointer was just moving gently backwards and forwards like this. It was a concrete hotel, and I was on the eighth floor. I heard the concrete structure of the hotel sort of grinding and squeaking, and I thought, well, this is either an earthquake or else they're setting off a bomb. I also thought I'd probably never know. But that night, on the flight back to Vancouver, I picked up a Los Angeles Times, and I read:

U.S. Tests Sixth A-weapon of the Year.

A thermonuclear weapon eleven times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb was exploded underground in the Nevada desert at 6.30 a.m.

So that was it.

The test range is eighty miles from that hotel. This weapon could shake a concrete hotel eighty miles away, so that was quite an impressive demonstration of the power of these weapons. It was my first experience, and I hope very much my last experience, of these weapons.

The second feature I want to emphasize about these crises—and the chart on the wall is an attempt to map them out—is risk. The unreality of these crises—and of nuclear weapons in general—sort of blinds us to the risks. At the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the world public was very much aware of these risks, but I think the awareness of risk has gone down as the risks themselves have gone up. So that's the second feature I'd like to bring to your attention.

The chart is obviously of the 20th century. There are a couple of things I want to point out. The two world wars are shown in red. The first one produced 17 million military casualties. The second one saw about 17 million to 20 million casualties among the military, but about 33 million among civilians—and that's an important trend to keep in mind for 20th century warfare: it increasingly comes home on civilians.

The orange marks on the chart are the nuclear crises as I see them. These in general get worse. The very last crisis, the one I call “first strike”, from 1983 to 1985, was certainly the worst one, and probably also the most unreal one.

Everybody who was aware at the time remembers the Cuban crisis. You can see in the centre the word “Cuba”, so that obviously was a very serious crisis.

Now, these crises fall into a pattern. The pattern is indicated by the wording at the bottom. In the first stage, U.S. number one was the period in which the U.S. had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. President Truman asked by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, how long it would be before the Russians got the bomb. Oppenheimer answered that it would be about ten years. Truman said they would never get it. This was Truman's thinking at that time. In fact, the Russians got it in 1949, so the Americans enjoyed this monopoly on nuclear weapons for just four years.

That was a terminal event of that period. There were actually two factors. There was the Russian bomb on September 3, 1949, and in October China went communist.

• 0945

So there was a whole strategic...and the situation in the world turned around rapidly at that point. There was sort of a convulsion in the policy of the United States after that, and Truman said to his advisers, how soon can the Soviets mount a serious atomic attack on us? They said that in 1954 would be what they then called “A-day”; that would be the day on which they could equal us in destructive power.

It's no accident that eight of the sixteen crises to which I'm drawing your attention happened in that period. “Nuke them first,” because there was very great pressure during that period to attack China and Russia with nuclear weapons, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and from the National Security Council. There were occasions when the only man who stood in between these weapons and the Russians was President Eisenhower. He resisted a lot of pressure to use these weapons.

This period, of course, culminated in the Cuban crisis, which was so bad. It was such a bad crisis in every way. It was not only appreciated by Kennedy and Khrushchev, but also by the populations of the world. People realized they had gone to the brink, and it sort of scared everybody straight for a period of about eight years—seven years actually.

It was no accident that one year after that crisis both Kennedy and Khrushchev signed the test ban treaty. Unfortunately, they couldn't build on this new relationship they had made, because Kennedy was assassinated one month later, in November, and Khrushchev lost power about a year later, just the day before the Chinese exploded their first bomb.

That scared-straight period was ended by Richard Nixon when he threatened to end the Vietnam War with nuclear weapons, and we enter sort of a confused period where the war machine that was running then just went relentlessly forward—a relentless arms race, I call it—and the technology of nuclear weapons advanced by leaps and bounds, especially in delivery systems. Instead of just having single rockets that delivered enormous warheads to wipe out cities, rockets got a lot more accurate and precise, and they carried multiple warheads.

We also had the development of the cruise missile, and this culminated in the worst one of the lot, the one you see at the end there, the one that we can all remember, the first-strike crisis. That crisis was launched when the Americans delivered to West Germany nine Pershing II missiles, which gave them, together with the cruise missile, the MX missile, a first-strike capability. Keep in mind that the difference between a first-strike capability and a first-strike intention is very hard to assess, especially for the enemy.

That crisis lasted about two years, and really it was brought to an end by Gorbachev. Gorbachev really ended the Cold War. That brings us to our present period, the post-Cold War period, and where are we now?

I thought for quite a long time that we were in a scared-straight period, but in the last year, with the expansion of NATO to the east and these developments of new nuclear testing, this sub-critical testing, I think actually we're in the back-to-number-one in this period, where we think we have some sort of a nuclear monopoly in NATO and among the nuclear powers, and there's a sort of arrogance that comes with this.

I certainly haven't time to go over these individual crises, which I would sure like to have. I wanted to bring out the crisis in which China was threatened, the third Berlin crisis, the crisis in which President Kennedy said to his cabinet that there was one chance in five of a nuclear exchange. This wasn't even the Cuban crisis; this was the crisis before. B-III, it's called on the chart there. Also, I wanted to get into the first-strike crisis, but there's just not time.

• 0950

I also wanted to get into the first-strike crisis, but there's just not time, so I will jump ahead to a summary of these crises, which you have in your notes.

The first point I want to make is that there was a serious threat of nuclear weapons during this 39 years of the Cold War, for a total of 107 months. That's 23% of the time—nine years of the time we were under threat.

There was a serious threat of extinction of the human race by nuclear winter for all major crises after Berlin II. That's the green arrow on the left.

But there was an ignorance of the threat of nuclear winter for 22 years. The arrow on the right shows the time at which nuclear winter was first discovered. So for 22 years we were in ignorance of nuclear winter. What other factors of nuclear war are we still in ignorance of if it took us 22 years to find out about that?

After the recent cold snap in Ontario and Quebec—the ice storm—we had a little taste of what winter is like without power. In a nuclear winter, just add darkness lasting one year, freezing temperatures in summer too—and even in the tropics; no escape to the tropics—no food supply, no water supply, no fuel, no electricity or gas, no sewage removal, no help coming from anywhere, a toxic smog, massive radiation causing sickness and death over huge areas, no crops, the collapse of farming, violent storms near the coast. After one year the smoke would clear and the ozone would be gone. There would be harsh ultraviolet radiation. Those are the kinds of risks we were taking in that 22-year period.

The response to that: three years later the American policy was quite unchanged, and Richard Perle, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, said on March 15, 1985: “Nuclear winter, which would wipe out all life on earth, is all the more reason to continue President Ronald Reagan's weapons build-up.”

I will now go to my conclusions, based on what you have heard: first, the risks from nuclear weapons have been far worse than we realize—even now; second, these risks remain; third, the present opportunity to decrease these risks is rapidly fading, especially in the last year; fourth, Canada's nuclear weapons policy is dictated by our NATO membership; fifth, working from within to change NATO's nuclear policy is an illusion; sixth, economic pressures to remain in NATO, such as the Canada-U.S. Defence Production Sharing Agreement, are very great, but they must be excluded in decisions of this present gravity; seventh, and last, getting rid of nuclear weapons will be very difficult, but compared to the problems of keeping them it will be child's play.

Finally, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms has three recommendations: one, that Canada's nuclear non-proliferation arms control and disarmament policy be revised so that it is in full compliance with the International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons; two, that Canada withdraw within five years from all military alliances where nuclear weapons are operational or can conceivably be used; and three, that Canada join in a quest for common security with other middle powers to press the nuclear weapons states to (a) immediately de-alert their nuclear weapons, (b) immediately sign a no first use pledge, and (c) sign before the year 2000 a convention that sets out a binding timetable for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Veterans Against Nuclear Arms thanks you very much for this opportunity to present our views.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Morgan.

From Physicians for Global Survival we have Dr. Bryans and Konia Trouton.

[Translation]

Dr. Konia Trouton (President, Physicians for Global Survival): Thank you. My name is Konia Trouton. Dr. Bryans and I would like to thank you for inviting us here this morning.

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Some of you will have heard or read the presentation we made last year. This current review of Canada's nuclear weapons policy is of the utmost importance.

Dr. Bryans and I are members of Physicians for Global Survival, a physician-led organization of approximately 7000 members. It was founded in Canada 17 years ago and formerly was called Canadian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Our mission statement reads: Because of our concern for global health, we are committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons, the prevention of war, the promotion of non-violent means of conflict resolution and social justice in a sustainable world.

The members of PGS see nuclear weapons as a health hazard, a moral issue and a legal concern; these weapons have the potential of creating the most massive human catastrophe, for which health services in the world could not alleviate the situation in any significant way. There can be no effective treatment for the immediate or ongoing damage it would cause to people or the environment in which we live.

We are part of the federation International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. We are one of the almost 1000 non-governmental organizations in 79 countries who comprise Abolition 2000, the international movement seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons. We are also a founding member of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

[English]

Dr. Alex M. Bryans (Physicians for Global Survival): We are here to do more than simply urge that Canada respect the clear ruling of the International Court of Justice, the long-established humanitarian law, and Geneva conventions regarding war and international conflict. We assume you want to hear of practical suggestions for complying with such international commitments, and in this regard we are sure the Canadian population would be very supportive.

Our presentation today will focus on the elimination of nuclear weapons, deterrence, NATO, and working with like-minded states.

Physicians for Global Survival was the coordinator of the World Court project in Canada, which brought the questions before the International Court of Justice on the legality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.

Close to 30,000 Canadians signed declarations of conscience to express their deeply held conscientious belief that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and morally wrong. Some 40 municipalities, including Toronto and Vancouver, and more than 100 regional and national organizations expressed their abhorrence of nuclear weapons through the World Court project. Some 20,000 Canadians have written to the government urging an end to Canada's granting of permission for U.S. nuclear force submarines to enter Canadian waters off the west coast.

Building on the work of the World Court project, Canadians have said repeatedly, when given the opportunity, they think nuclear weapons are unacceptable and should be eliminated. The committee will be aware of the results of the cross-Canada series of round tables chaired by Douglas Roche, where community leaders called for leadership by the Canadian government to work “immediately—not in the distant future—to secure an international nuclear weapons abolition program”.

To emphasize these first points you will see our first two recommendations on page 3. Recommendation 1 is that the Canadian government respect the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice and existing international laws. Recommendation 2 relates to one of the first practical steps, that Canada begin to press nuclear weapons states to take nuclear weapons off alert and to commit to no first use.

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You will undoubtedly have read, or be able to read, the model nuclear weapons convention submitted to the United Nations recently by Costa Rica. This is a timely initiative, which leads to our third recommendation: that Canada support efforts that lead to achieving a nuclear-weapons-free convention.

Deterrence is on page 3 of our written report. We wish to challenge the issue of deterrence, the notion that the overt possession or implied use of nuclear bombs improves security by decreasing the likelihood that another party will use their nuclear bombs. The premise of that argument is that a country needs to maintain nuclear bombs in order to deter their use by recalcitrant states or terrorists, or by one nuclear weapons state against another. If certain nations, including the powerful ones, claim to need nuclear weapons for their security, other nations will conclude that they need them even more. The only effective way to remove the threat that nuclear bombs pose, regardless of who possesses them, is to create a world free of nuclear bombs.

We recognize that the public does need to be protected and that there will continue to be conflicts within and between nations. Therefore PGS supports the use and development of effective and safe means to resolve these conflicts in a non-violent manner. We also emphasize that human security includes principles of social justice, human rights, and shared responsibility.

Some say that 5,000, or 500, or even 50 is a safe number of nuclear weapons and might bring about deterrence. They might deter bombs, but the risk to society still exists. Accidental or unauthorized use is not entirely prevented. This argument that nuclear bombs protect society is fatally flawed.

Before leaving this issue of deterrence, we would urge that the committee address the following four questions. Suppose the Russians exploded a nuclear bomb, unauthorized, over an American city. One, what would be the response of the United States? Two, what is the U.S. plan for such a situation? They undoubtedly have one. Three, does the Canadian government know the U.S. plan and agree with it? Four, if the Canadian government does not know, will it take immediate steps to find out?

Our fourth recommendation is that the Canadian government reject the concept of nuclear deterrence as a means of achieving national or international security.

Dr. Konia Trouton: With respect to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, we have the following four concerns. They're embedded in the text in front of you, and I'll summarize them.

First, the recent NATO communiqué of December stated:

We reaffirm that the nuclear forces of the Allies continue to play a unique and essential role in the Alliance's strategy of war prevention.

Our second concern is that the Canadian government has accepted NATO's declaration as a central component of defence. We ask, where in Canada's foreign policy is it stated that nuclear weapons are essential for our well-being?

Mr. Roche has already illustrated the discrepancy between international law and NATO policy.

The lack of transparency within NATO and the Canadian Department of National Defence is one of our concerns also. In particular, we are referring to the examination of an update as necessary of the alliance's strategic concept, which was announced by the NATO defence ministers in December 1997. The lack of transparency is also illustrated by Canada's recent ratification, this week, of NATO expansion.

The final item we want to emphasize is the complete indifference of the NATO alliance to the decision of the International Court of Justice.

This brings us to page 6 of our text, where we have recommendation 5: that the Canadian government work within NATO for rejection of NATO's nuclear dependency and nuclear war-fighting strategy.

We hope Canada will bring these troubling issues to the attention of other NATO members.

Turning now to the section on working with like-minded states, we would like to voice our strong and enthusiastic support for the concept of working with like-minded states to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. As a non-governmental organization, Physicians for Global Survival is working collaboratively with others, nationally and internationally, to develop this initiative.

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We believe Canada has the greatest impact when working with other nations. Therefore we'd like to make our sixth recommendation: that the Canadian government work with like-minded states to press the five nuclear powers for a commitment to begin multinational negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Finally, we have a few comments about Additional Protocol 1, which has not yet been mentioned. The International Court of Justice noted that Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions in 1990 prohibits, for those states that have ratified it:

methods or means of warfare which are intended, or which may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment.

In its ruling, the International Court of Justice concluded that:

states must take environmental considerations into account when assessing what is necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of legitimate military objectives.

Canada ratified Additional Protocol 1, with the understanding that the rules it introduced did not apply to nuclear weapons. Other states, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, have also applied that same understanding to the protocol. That understanding is indefensible in view of international law.

Our final recommendation is that the Canadian government remove this reservation to the ratification and conform in full to Additional Protocol 1.

Again, we appreciate the opportunity to express the concerns of our members in Physicians for Global Survival. We would welcome the continuation of a collaborative approach between the NGO community and this committee. We feel the most important issue is the elimination of all nuclear weapons. To achieve this goal, it is crucially important to have a clearly defined timetable, agreed upon, for the steps toward abolition.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

I understand our next group is from the Canadian Peace Alliance. Ms. Berlyn and Mr. Klopstock will be sharing their time.

Go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Klopstock (President, Les artistes pour la paix, Canadian Peace Alliance): Thank you. Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, first of all I would like to thank you for inviting us and giving the Canadian Peace Alliance an opportunity to speak here today.

My name is Paul Klopstock from Artists for Peace and I'm accompanied by Ms. Judith Berlyn from the Westmount Peace Initiative.

The Canadian Peace Alliance is an umbrella organization bringing together a large number of Canadian groups working, among other things, for a world free of the constant menace of destruction caused by weapons, particularly nuclear weapons.

The Canadian Peace Alliance shares the concerns expressed by the representatives of the four NGOs you have heard this morning. We agree with their arguments and we support all their recommendations. We would like however to make three additional recommendations relating to the expansion of NATO, the transfer of plutonium, namely its sale, transportation and trade, and the militarization of space.

Concerning the expansion of NATO, as you know, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has undertaken to expand in Eastern Europe, including henceforth countries that were signatory to the former Warsaw Pact. With the eastward expansion of NATO's jurisdiction, its policies and military deployments will also be directed eastwards, and this could include nuclear arms.

This decision means a change in the so-called East-West border and is very disquieting to Russia, that has begun a re-assessment of its policy on the position and use of its nuclear arsenal. Although Russia previously promised to never make first use of nuclear arms, this policy has now been withdrawn. In view of the fact that NATO has never made such a promise, we now find ourselves in a situation where any state in possession of nuclear weapons believes it has the right of first use both for offensive purposes and deterrence, thus giving rise to a potentially more volatile situation.

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The Canadian Alliance for Peace would like to recommend that the committee urge the government to hold a public debate on the expansion of NATO in the hope the government will eventually exercise its veto on this project. As you know, the government did exactly the contrary in announcing in a press release the day before yesterday that Canada had ratified this expansion without consulting the Canadian public. The Canadian Alliance for Peace is outraged by such a lack of democracy in a matter relating to public security and the future of us all.

With respect to plutonium and proliferation, it is of no avail to achieve the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons if we allow the proliferation of plutonium, the main explosive component used in the manufacture of such weapons. That is why the Canadian Alliance for Peace is opposed to the plan to import plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons to be used as fuel in Ontario Hydro reactors. Other countries like France, Japan, Russia and India are planning to do likewise, thus creating a new plutonium economy. Once this project becomes widely commercialized, a black market is inevitable. Hence plutonium will be available for anyone, a government, a terrorist group or criminal organization, wishing to manufacture its own nuclear weapon.

The Canadian Alliance for Peace recommends that the committee urge the Canadian government to reject the proposed importation of up to 100 tons of plutonium from dismantled Russian and American nuclear weapons to be used as a fuel in Ontario Hydro reactors.

As for the militarization of space, the media are starting to talk about Canada's involvement in the militarization of space with the United States. The opposition already expressed by the government of Canada to this new military sector should be clearly reflected by the Department of National Defence.

The Canadian Alliance for Peace recommends that the committee request the Canadian government insist that the Department of National Defence clearly renounce any involvement in the militarization of space.

I'd now like to turn the floor over to Ms. Berlyn.

[English]

Ms. Judith Berlyn (Canadian Peace Alliance): Good morning. Bonjour.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. Albert Einstein's warning to the world is much more urgent today than it was in 1946. We've just been hearing some of the reasons that is the case.

The overall purpose of the Canadian Peace Alliance is to be part of the process that is changing the world's way of thinking in an attempt to avert the unparalleled disaster towards which we continue to drift. Our particular purpose here today is to urge the committee to persuade the government to change its way of thinking about nuclear weapons and nuclear war. We see this way of thinking as an attitude problem.

The Government of Canada's position is that for the time being, at any rate, nuclear weapons are a necessary evil, and that the NATO policies that threaten to initiate nuclear war should continue to be supported by Canada. Since July 8, 1996, the government has maintained this position at the expense of ignoring the International Court of Justice, thereby defying international law.

We are deeply disturbed by this attitude and by the policies associated with it. We cannot conceive of any situation that would justify nuclear war. We have asked DFAIT officials what circumstances the Government of Canada considers would justify initiating nuclear war, to no avail. Apparently the government has no criteria. Incredible as it may seem, the government does not know where it draws the line on the issue of launching nuclear war. Perhaps this is because of its denial problem.

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The risks inherent in continuing to live with the danger posed by the very existence of nuclear weapons are unacceptable to us. The only way to be sure of preventing nuclear war is to get rid of nuclear weapons. If there are no nuclear weapons there can be no nuclear war. If there are no nuclear weapons there can be no accidents with nuclear weapons.

The government's attitude ignores, to the point of denial, the most important single fact we have to face, which is quite simply that there is no such thing as fail-proof technology. Sooner or later all technology fails. It's only a matter of time before the technology that has allowed us to make, handle, and store nuclear weapons for over 50 years will fail. The unparalleled catastrophe will occur.

We ask each of you to imagine how you will feel if this happens within your lifetime, as it may well do, and you have not done everything in your power to prevent it.

This brings us to a political problem. As people have said, the only thing standing in the way of a nuclear-weapons-free world is a lack of political will. From the dawn of the nuclear age, Canadian policies have helped to perpetuate both the existence of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. For decades, thousands of Canadians have urged successive governments to change that. The need to do so becomes more urgent each day that we continue our drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Please help us create the political will in this country to make Canada a leader in freeing the world of this genocidal menace. Thank you. Merci.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you very much.

Mr. Grewal, please.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their excellent reports. We heard all the witnesses, and we know there is no need for nuclear war in the world. Nobody wants a nuclear war in the world. That's why no war has happened so far. Some nations have a desire for nuclear war. That's why nuclear weapons are made.

If we look into the evolution of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons have been secretly made. Confidentiality and security was paramount in those days. For 22 years there was ignorance in the world about nuclear weapons. They were expensive weapons that were made at that time.

The target is to eliminate the weapons completely—that's the Canadian target. We know that challenges are high.

I have a problem here. We know that legal implications to some extent don't mean anything in these disarmament treaties. There are two important factors: trust and verification. When one nation manufactures weapons they don't trust other nations, or they are trying to spy on other nations. Trust is very shaky.

As far as verification is concerned, what are the means, what is the process, or what are the components in the whole process that will assure verification of destruction of those weapons in these treaties? That's one question I have.

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The other one I have, Madam Chair, is about the security issue, the dangerous nuclear stuff like plutonium when it gets into the hands of terrorists, how to get it out of the hands of the terrorists, how it can be.... I heard that hundreds of nuclear briefcase bombs are already available in Russia. We heard about those stand-offs when they were threatening, and so forth.

So the question would be, how can we control the security and terrorist part of this issue?

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Who were you directing your question to, Mr. Grewal?

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I don't know who would like to answer.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Who would like to take this?

Mr. Douglas Roche: Madam Chairperson, thank you. Mr. Robinson is going to answer the first question, and I'll begin the answer to the second question.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Bill Robinson: Oh, I was going to speak to the question of verification. I'm not sure whether that's the first question, but in any case, it is a question.

There's no such thing as perfect verification, and there never will be. That's the world we live in, and that's what we will have to deal with, but we can deal with that.

What you can be sure of with inspection and monitoring procedures and so forth is that there isn't a huge, large-scale cheating under way. Yes, it can be small-scale, potentially. That would become quite difficult with extensive verification procedures, inspections and so forth in place. It would also be very difficult with the political-psychological climate that would be engendered by a nuclear abolition agreement, which would make it clear to everybody that to produce, hide and maintain these weapons is a crime against humanity .

So you could have a kind of civilian verification too, where there are whistle-blowers and there's the espionage end of things. Keeping that kind of secret is not really all that easy, and in fact nuclear arsenals that are supposedly secret are not. We know who has the bomb, and we've known who has the bomb. We knew South Africa had the bomb, even though they never admitted it until after they had eliminated it. But it was not a secret that they had the bomb. South Africa had the bomb.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): We are about to deal with Iraq right now. Does Iraq have the bomb? I mean, we could—

Mr. Bill Robinson: No, Iraq does not have the bomb.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: The problem is that if we have a stand-off like the Iraq situation down the road in history, what is the solution? Is the solution that America will put all the allies together and then attack that country, whatever that country may be? If that country happens to be the U.S.A., what are the solutions? What are we looking at?

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I think Ms. Berlyn has a point.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: I'm not a scientist; I'm a librarian by professional training. But my friends who are scientists assure me that the real key to this is to outlaw and cut off the supply of fissionable materials, the essential explosive material.

Only two materials in the world can make a nuclear bomb. You have to have either highly enriched uranium, often called HEU, or weapons-grade plutonium, separated plutonium. So you need one or the other. To make either of these things is not a simple, little matter that you do in a clandestine way. I'm told it's impossible to make those materials clandestinely.

The uranium enrichment plants cover acres, so with satellite and so on, you can't hide it in a mountain, underground, or somewhere like that, if you're enriching uranium. I gather it is the same with plutonium.

So as part of the total package, we could outlaw the production of those materials, which are only necessary for making the bombs. They have no civilian use, you see. They're not necessary to make nuclear energy or anything like that. That would solve the problem; people would not have the essential materials to make nuclear bombs. So it has to be part of the whole deal.

You will have much more opportunity to pose questions on this point on the 19th—I hope you're available at these hearings—when, I believe, the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout is due to make a submission.

Mr. Bill Robinson: I'd like to continue when you're done.

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Ms. Judith Berlyn: I'm quite finished.

Mr. Bill Robinson: I would broadly agree with that. It's not possible to get perfect verification. It is possible to have high security confidence that huge cheating is not going on.

Small-scale cheating is a potential danger. It's a risk you face that is a lot smaller than the risk we face in the current world right now. I think this is an important point. You have to balance the risks you're facing.

The risk right now is that 8,000 megatons will go off and destroy human civilization. The worst-case risk of cheating in that sort of time is that a small number of bombs might go off. That would be a terrible thing, but it wouldn't be anywhere near the scale of the end of human civilization. That's an important thing to keep in mind.

But I think it's important to address the question of what happens in the worst case, because it is going to be on your minds. It goes beyond the issue of verification.

Even if I could promise you perfect verification, you would say, well, what happens if it fails? So let's address what happens if it fails.

I don't agree that the Iraq situation is that case, but for the sake of argument, let's pretend that it is. What you're facing is a case of someone with weapons of mass destruction where there is no diplomatic solution possible, and there is some kind of intent to make use of these weapons. Maybe he doesn't want to kill people, but he wants to threaten with these weapons and so forth.

So let's take that as the worst case, and let me say again that I do not agree that this is what we're facing with Iraq right now. But assume that were the case.

Well, one of the points that should be made is that this can arise in this world. Some people believe it has arisen with Iraq, but it could arise in this nuclear arms world. So the fact that we have nuclear arsenals now does not protect us from this kind of threat, first, because those weapons could be used, even with the deterrent threats.

They talk about undeterrable threats. Well, this can happen, and they could happen by accident too. So that threat still exists.

I have a second point, which I have alluded to. The worst case we're talking about with respect to this small-scale cheating is a lot less than the worst case that we do face in today's world, right now, which is the end of history.

So what do you do with that small-scale cheater? I would argue that the real deterrent threat, if you will, the real response the world community would have to that kind of thing isn't weapons of mass destruction in return. It's the world community's ability to threaten and, if necessary, to act to topple that regime with conventional force, and punish those transgressors, to have the appropriate people making licence plates with Manuel Noriega, if you want to put it that way.

Now, Project Ploughshares is not a great advocate of the use of military force, and that's not what I came to propose to you. But if we're talking worst case, worst case, worst case, where really there is no other diplomatic solution, that is what the world would be doing.

I'd argue that this is really what will resolve the crisis over Iraq, however you wish to analyse it, too. It will be conventional force, and not nuclear threats that have been made. The conventional threat is a lot more useful, and a lot more credible. It's useful because it hits what the regime cares about, which is power.

Saddam Hussein doesn't very much care about civilians in Iraq. Under the sanctions regime 600,000 have died so far. It hasn't bothered him that much. But he does care about being in power. If the conventional threat hits what you care about, it would do a more thorough job of removing these weapons.

If they drop nuclear bombs, they don't know where the threatened biological weapons are. They don't know what to target. The only way to remove those weapons thoroughly in such a situation would be to go in on the ground, search the entire place, change the government.

Of course, using conventional force is discriminating, which means it does not destroy massive cities full of civilians. Comparatively speaking, that makes it a moral approach and a legal approach, and I think that's important for a civilized planet to try to pursue.

It's well within the capabilities of world powers. The G-8 countries in NATO represent about 70% of world military spending. They're 100 times the size of the largest so-called rogue state. I mean, there is no issue here about the availability of conventional force. It avoids the problem—

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I'm going to have to ask you to wrap this up quickly because we're on our 10-minute—

Mr. Bill Robinson: Yes, I just have a couple of sentences.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): And Mr. Turp is waiting patiently.

Mr. Bill Robinson: I'm sorry, yes.

It avoids the problem of legitimating weapons of mass destruction, which the current threats do.

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For all these reasons, it's a far more credible threat when you're doing that. I would say that this would be how you would respond to that. I'd say that also explains why no weapons of mass destruction were used in the Gulf War.

It had nothing to do with so-called nuclear threats. It had a lot to do with the fact that the world community had the ability to respond to that thing in credible ways.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Madam Chair.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No, I'm sorry, we'll have to come back to you, Mr. Grewal. I'm going to Mr. Turp now.

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp: First of all, I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentation. I very much appreciated the pedagogical quality of your testimony, Mr. Morgan. We learned a great deal from you and you provided a very good summary of the present state of affairs.

Your comparison between nuclear winter and recent events reminded me of the few minutes I spent on a bridge in my riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry in January, not so long ago, where I observed first-hand this desert landscape, this greyness, that makes us think of what irresponsible states and men—I hope it would not be women—could do to our planet if they were ever to resort to nuclear arms.

I also very much appreciated, Ms. Berlyn, the conviction with which you spoke. You remind us that not everything has been done, that in fact little has been done in an attempt to eliminate nuclear weapons from this planet.

I have three questions and I'd like everyone to answer, although I'm addressing them to particular witnesses. Mr. Roche, you have extraordinary experience. You were the predecessor of Mr. Moher, who spoke to us on Tuesday. You have more freedom now, more freedom to speak. In your statement you referred to the "heart of the issue".

Since you have this freedom now, can you tell us what is the heart of the issue? What kind of work can we do to bring about the elimination of nuclear weapons? Is the heart of the issue really the political will of the United States or of Russia? Is it the ability or the inability of middle powers, as you call them, to influence these two states? Or would it be another princess arising on the scene to influence international public opinion and bring several countries to fight for the elimination of nuclear weapons, as we may perhaps one day succeed in doing in the case of antipersonnel mines? That question is for you, Mr. Roche.

Mr. Robinson, I put this question the day before yesterday to the Ambassador. I'd like to know if Canada's hands are clean when it presents itself as a defender and advocate of the elimination of nuclear weapons. In your brief, you refer to the forms of nuclear co-operation between Canada and a number of countries, including the United States, and its involvement with NATO. I'd like to know whether in the circumstances, Canada can claim to be a legitimate advocate in supporting organizations such as yours in their work to eliminate nuclear weapons.

You almost all referred to the very interesting question of the compliance of Canadian nuclear policy with the opinion of the International Court of Justice. Someone even said that there was no compliance. You, Ms. Trouton, and your group made a very interesting and concrete recommendation, namely the withdrawal of Canada's reservation to protocol number 1 of the Geneva Convention.

I think it will be very useful for our committee to have some clear statements on this matter. Do you think that Canada and other countries are now in a situation where they are violating their international obligations? Those are my three questions.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Roche.

[Translation]

Mr. Doug Roche: Thank you, Mr. Turp. If I may, I'll answer in English.

[English]

You've asked about the heart of the issue. I would see the heart of the issue here in two ways. First is the humanitarian aspect. You yourself, sir, have just been making a reference to the nuclear winter aspect. The devastation following a nuclear explosion would be so massive—and Mr. Morgan took us through some of the results—as to make life intolerable. After that, you can make many more statements.

That's why I concluded my testimony by asking the committee to keep foremost in your attention the assault on human life, the assault on the planet itself, that nuclear weapons represent. They are, as the former president of the World Court said, the ultimate evil.

Secondly, sir, the heart of the issue, speaking in political terms, is to convince the nuclear weapons states to enter a program of negotiations. Here we must focus on the United States. China has already voted at the United Nations for a time-bound program for nuclear disarmament. Russia used to vote in such a manner under Gorbachev and would again if they saw a western lead. Britain and France, while nuclear states, are certainly beholden to the United States in this respect.

It is the United States's determination, as reflected in President Clinton's presidential directive of two months ago, to which I draw the committee's attention. It is the intention of the United States to maintain nuclear weapons into the next century and to refine them.

So the heart of the issue for this committee and for the Government of Canada is how to influence the United States. They are our friend; they are our ally. I believe we ought to work in concert with like-minded states that are also feeling, as Canada does, that the elimination of nuclear weapons is a goal and a necessity that we have to achieve.

You've made reference to my own work, and I thank you for that reference. It is because I have worked inside the government—and I'm now in a non-governmental capacity—that I can see both perspectives. I see what the committee is facing and what you have to do.

The lead that the Canadian government took in the landmines issue gives us a way to proceed in the nuclear arms issue. In the landmines issue, a partnership was formed between the non-governmental organizations and the Government of Canada, which then led the way.

We come here this morning, my colleagues and I, in an atmosphere of collaboration with the government. After all, what the government has said, and what Ambassador Moher said in his statement to this committee two days ago, is what we want too. We want the elimination, but we see it in perhaps a little different perspective.

The government takes the view that a nuclear weapons convention is premature, but that is not the view of the United Nations. A majority at the United Nations says a nuclear weapons convention must be negotiated now, and there's a UN document in this respect, which I draw to the committee's attention.

The government says the advisory opinion of the World Court doesn't specify a particular course of action, but, Mr. Turp and members of the committee, it does. It specifies precisely that there must be a conclusion of negotiations. How do we conclude negotiations when they haven't even started?

So I come to my central point. I believe a partnership between the government and non-governmental organizations that are rallying public opinion in Canada, that can help Canada show like-minded states that there is a developing and informed public opinion that wants to move forward on humanitarian grounds, can help the U.S. administration move in this direction. The U.S. administration needs help, because they have their own recalcitrant elements within the United States itself. They need help from like-minded states. They need help from public opinion.

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We're here to help the Government of Canada proceed in the same manner as they did with the landmines convention, which was a fusion, a synergy, of energy brought by the development of civil society, which we represent here today, with the elected political officials in the Government of Canada so that we can work together.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

I'm sorry, Mr. Turp.

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp: And my two other questions?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I'm going to give Mr. Robinson an opportunity. We'll get back to you again.

Svend Robinson.

[Translation]

Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby—Douglas, NDP): I think you had some other questions that they'd like to answer briefly.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Okay. It's your time.

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp: I'd like to hear some others, Mr. Robinson, perhaps quickly.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Robinson, will it be your time? Are you prepared to share your time?

Mr. Svend Robinson: No, I'm not that generous.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I'm afraid we're going to have to stick to the timetable. We'll get back to everybody.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I too want to thank all of the witnesses for their very eloquent and powerful presentations today. I want to be very clear that I speak on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, my leader, in saying that we fully support the objectives you have urged the committee to support today, particularly the conclusion of a convention to eliminate all nuclear weapons. I thank you for your eloquent testimony today.

I might just add a personal note, that it certainly resonated with me. I recall coming home from school as a grade 7 student in Lethbridge, Alberta, and finding my mother in tears. At the time of the Cuban missile crisis she was an active member of the Voice of Women. Just that sense of powerlessness and despair that the world was poised on the brink of the actual use of these weapons of mass destruction was so appalling.

I recall meeting with a survivor of Hiroshima and hearing her story, and I recall telling the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes to children in schools in my riding.

So I thank you for your powerful evidence.

I have three questions. I'm not sure if we'll be able to get answers to all three, but my first is to Mr. Roche. I've known Doug Roche as a colleague and friend in the House for many years, and I thank him for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Roche, you chaired hearings across Canada on this issue, and it's my sense that the public is well ahead of the politicians. I might say that particularly young people are ahead of the politicians. I wonder if you might take a minute or two to reflect to the committee what you heard from Canadians on this issue of the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Secondly, the chair has raised the issue of Iraq, as have some members; Mr. Robinson talked about Iraq. There's been some discussion of the possibility that America might respond in some way with nuclear weapons should Iraq launch some kind of attack. One of the things that I hope perhaps we can hear from the witnesses on is their response to this possibility and the horror of this possibility.

Frankly, when we look at weapons of mass destruction, I think we have to underline the profound hypocrisy of the United States and the United Kingdom in this crisis. They possess the weapons of greatest mass destruction. Israel, which is in the Middle East, next door, clearly possesses nuclear weapons as well. A courageous man, Mordechai Vanunu, who exposed that, is in solitary confinement today. So there's profound hypocrisy in the United States and in the United Kingdom, and I might say in the Canadian government as well, in this whole situation.

Do the witnesses agree that the military option in Iraq is madness, conventional or otherwise, and that the more appropriate response is perhaps to look at the destructive impact of sanctions, particularly on children, as documented by UNICEF, and to work to try to provide some positive alternatives and come up with a non-military response?

• 1045

Finally, my party's position on NATO has been clear for many years. It's an anachronism. It's an absurdity, frankly, to believe that this alliance contributes in any sense to common security, particularly with its policy of first use of nuclear weapons. I recall asking Secretary General Solana, sitting at this very table in this very room, why NATO maintained this absurd policy, and getting no answer.

Will the witnesses indicate the importance of Canada's playing a leadership role within NATO to try to end nuclear weapons use within NATO?

Mr. Douglas Roche: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll answer the first question concerning public opinion, I think Mr. Robinson will lead on Iraq, and then we'll respond on NATO.

Mr. Robinson, member of Parliament, thank you, sir. It's good to see you back here.

I, on behalf of Project Ploughshares, travelled across the country in late 1996 and visited 18 cities from coast to coast. I held round tables with invited participants of community leaders, and there were about 400 such individuals, a good cross-section in each place. You've asked for their view.

We gave a report to the Government of Canada that expressed very clearly that within Canada there are Canadian values, firmly rooted in the pursuit of peace, that would have the government work immediately, not in the distant future, to secure a nuclear weapons abolition program. If the government were able to move forward, for example in this initiative of getting like-minded states to work together from different parts of the world to reflect this concern about human survival, which nuclear weapons threaten, there would be immense support for the government's position and indeed for Parliament in moving in this direction.

The chairman of this committee has previously referred to the fact that on no other subject has the committee received so much mail as on nuclear weapons. I can assure you that across the country there is a body of opinion when it is informed. Many people don't think about this issue, but when you bring the facts to them, there is a level of concern, and I believe the government would receive a lot of support moving ahead.

In that body of support, of course, is great concern about NATO. Many Canadians feel there's a question mark about NATO's long-range future, but in any event, it's here and it's expanding. If it is expanding, at the very least, the bottom line is that NATO must get rid of nuclear weapons. I would say there's a strong public opinion in Canada that would support this.

Mr. Bill Robinson: On the question of Iraq, I'd like to make it quite clear that Project Ploughshares, and I'm quite sure the others here, do not support any form of military action in this crisis under the current circumstances. When I was speaking before, it was purely to use that as a way of discussing worse cases in the post-abolition world, not this particular situation.

This situation is quite different, largely because diplomacy has not been effectively tried. It has not been given a chance, and the chance it should be given is on the basis of determining what the precise conditions would be for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq's compliance with the UN Special Commission.

I believe that if a diplomatic negotiation were attempted along those grounds, there is a very good chance that this crisis would be resolved. It is not being attempted; it's being blocked. The United States and some other countries are pushing this towards military action unnecessarily and inappropriately.

The use of implied nuclear threats is obscene. It is totally wrong. It is counterproductive. It is arguably illegal. It is a huge mistake. It will undermine the non-proliferation regime. It is simply absolute stupidity on the part of government, and the Canadian government should disassociate itself from that fully.

• 1050

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you. Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much. Of course, nobody intends to disagree with what you're saying, but you have to face the realities. Everybody believes that what you say is true. I happen to believe that what you say is true, especially in the Middle East, where war is part of daily life.

I have a couple of questions, and one of them is for Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Morgan, on the first page of your presentation, 3-5, you state that Gorbachev ended the Cold War between 1985 and 1991. Can you describe how he ended the war? Did he win the war? Did he lose the war? What happened? If you can clarify that, I would really appreciate it. That's my first question.

My second question is for Mr. Roche. Here in Canada, in the west, we have the luxury of asking ourselves hypothetical questions: if this happens, that happens, what have you. But put yourself behind the Iron Curtain before Gorbachev in 1985, at the height of the Cold War, and let's assume the seven of you here—I'm just making this hypothetical; don't hold that against me—are the chief of staff of the Canadian Armed Forces. Let us assume Russia attacked Canada from around Vancouver Island, and started coming eastward toward Ottawa. You are the chief of staff and you are seeing people being gassed by the evil empire, to use Ronald Reagan's phrase. There is every destruction, mass destruction, burning, everything the way you see it in the movie The Day After.

If you were chief of staff, would you surrender, or would you defend the country with any means you had?

Mr. David Morgan: Shall I answer your question first?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Sure, the first question was for you.

Mr. David Morgan: Gorbachev ended the Cold War. On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the Communist Party. He beat his rival, Viktor Grishin, by one vote.

Grishin was a hardliner. It's possible that if Grishin had been elected, with two hardliners facing each other, nuclear war would have broken out.

In July—that's March, April, May, June, July—Gorbachev ordered the cessation of Soviet nuclear tests. He didn't call a conference about it. He didn't say, will the Americans cease tests too? He did it.

In November of that year Gorbachev met Ronald Reagan in Geneva, and from that moment tensions began to ease. There was a sort of good chemistry between these two leaders, and they came out of that meeting with a statement: nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The actions that followed didn't necessarily bear that out, but that was the statement made at that time.

The following year, 1986, was the UN year of peace. During that year the United States made 15 nuclear weapons tests. Under the leadership of Gorbachev, the Soviet Union made none.

On January 15 of that year Gorbachev proposed a step-by-step plan to get rid of nuclear weapons from the earth by the year 2000. I won't take you through those steps, but this was the man's vision.

He had a great vision for this. He followed his actions with words. From what I've said, I think he ended the nuclear arms race, the Cold War.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: By threatening or by winning?

Mr. David Morgan: He won the Cold War in the only real way the war could be won. The Cold War was not about the Soviet Union armed with nuclear weapons against the United States armed with nuclear weapons. Gorbachev saw, as I think a lot of us see, that it was a question of the Soviet Union and America against nuclear weapons, in fact, all of humanity against nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev spotted this. He yielded his country's nuclear weapons and nuclear power far more than the Americans did, but he got the results.

Mr. Douglas Roche: Thank you, Mr. Assadourian. You certainly have posed a hypothetical question in suggesting that Doug Roche would ever be the chief of defence staff. It would certainly be news in the country if that appointment were ever made.

• 1055

I have to suggest that the premise of your question is rooted in the Cold War. We referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire, which was the designation given, but that very terminology is reflective of the period that we have moved away from. We're not only not dealing with an evil empire; we're not even dealing with the Soviet Union. It has imploded. We're dealing with Russia, a country that desperately needs the economic and political partnership of the west in order for its own people to flourish and develop.

I was in Moscow just recently, and it's clear to me that the only reason there is a resurgence of militarism in Russia today is because there is a hesitation on the part of the west to enter into a full partnership with them, which implies more economic assistance. But within Russia itself there's a strong body of opinion, political and military, to get rid of nuclear weapons, just as there is in our society.

So what I want to do is build on this commonality of interests that now prevail in the post-Cold War era and have us all recognize that this is a new era that we have moved into, and that rather than conjecturing attacks, one on another, we would work to ensure that the cut-off of fissile material for the production of new bombs, the deceleration, the de-alerting, the detargeting, no first use—all those precise steps that would be taken in the context of a commitment by the nuclear weapon states would, unequivocally, begin the process of negotiating nuclear disarmament. I think that's the more realistic way of approaching the scenario today.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: That doesn't answer my question, but it's okay.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Bachand.

[Translation]

Mr. André Bachand (Richmond—Arthabaska, PC): First of all, I'd like to thank those who have come to speak to us this morning. Unfortunately, in view of the small amount of time and the number of witnesses around the table, we do not have a chance to ask you in-depth questions about your presentations. We do, however, greatly appreciate the fact that you have come here to speak to us.

I think that we all share the aim of having a safer world, a world at peace. But there are certain things that are difficult to achieve from the point of view of security.

I'd like to make two very short comments because time is of the essence. There's been a lot of talk about antipersonnel mines. It was a good exercise. Perhaps it was easier to achieve the objective as well. When we look at the situation as far as mines are concerned, we see that a number of the large players are absent. Imagine what it is when we talk about nuclear weapons. I can't see that the large players who are not involved in the ban of antipersonnel mines would very easily go along with joining a group of countries without nuclear weapons.

I'm convinced that the government of Canada, Parliament in general and Minister Axworthy in particular, will not be able to go out tomorrow and start all over again the work they did for antipersonnel mines. After listening to you, I think there's a great deal of work to be done here in Canada before we can sell anything outside the country. So there is work to be done here. There may also be a problem of consistency among the various departments concerned. Reference was made to NATO.

I'll say a few quick words about Iraq. Iraq is both an example and not an example. One thing that emerges from the Iraq situation, and perhaps from all the crises that have occurred there, is that we should perhaps reinvent diplomacy. When compliance with a written treaty is no longer possible, when the treaty can no longer be enforced, there is a problem. That is part of diplomacy.

Let's take an example, such as a traffic offence. There is a regulation that says you cannot go faster than 50 km/hour. You have a structure than can enforce that regulation. You have recourse to the justice system to have the regulation enforced quickly and immediately. But in diplomacy, there is a problem. The treaty itself, the sheet of paper, is not really enough. So we talk about verification. But in a country like Iraq—which isn't really that important to Canada—where all the principles of verification, principles of diplomacy and international rules of the game go out of the window, you can end up with far more serious problems. In any case, I think that we will have to reinvent diplomacy. And this is where the process has to begin.

• 1100

I would like your opinion on the concrete action we should take with respect to the three broad principles of non- proliferation and nuclear weapons elimination, which the ambassador was talking about in committee. There is a political issue, a security issue and a technological issue, and the ambassador seemed to be linking them all. How can you tie these issues into a quick nuclear disarmament operation?

We mentioned antipersonnel mines and nuclear weapons, but between those two extremes there is a whole range of so-called conventional weapons, as well as chemical and bacteriological weapons. Canada will have to come up with a position on those at some point.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Who's going to take the question?

[Translation]

Dr. Konia Trouton: I could start by talking about the comparison with antipersonnel mines. The treaties and discussions involved contain many similarities, and we can learn a great deal.

To begin with, we now have a United Nations convention against nuclear weapons. That is a start.

[English]

We can begin from that point.

All of us have emphasized that, as Canada, we should support the initiation Costa Rica has made by putting in front of the United Nations this convention against nuclear weapons.

Second, in the Mines Action movement in December, there was a clear collaboration between the NGO community and government community. We would support that initiative also: that there would be a collaboration within Canada between non-governmental organizations and the government as well as the middle power initiatives, Canada and other like-minded states.

Those are two very clear comparisons and useful lessons we can learn from the process in December.

Perhaps another member would like to continue on from that point.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Roche.

Mr. Douglas Roche: I heard the member say that Canada needs to develop its own position here, as we had developed a position in the landmines question, which enabled us to go outward and lead the world. That is absolutely correct.

There are certainly divisions within the various components of the government on the question of how we can move on nuclear weapons. There needs to be some reconciling of those positions, and I would look to the committee's report for some methodology of enabling us to speak with clarity.

Again I come back to the fact that within the country there are highly informed non-governmental organizations that can be of assistance in the formulation of a coherent policy to be taken outward. This coherence centres on the recognition that the International Court of Justice's call for the conclusion of negotiations must be followed, and that in trying to convince the nuclear weapons states, including and especially the United States, it is in their interest to so move forward in the interest of world safety as we go into the next century.

That is a build-up of global consciousness that can occur, just as a build-up of opinion occurred in the development of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. For a long time the United States voted against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at the UN, and then when opinions built up, the United States changed its opinion.

So, too, I forecast that with enough world opinion led by respectable, influential, moderate countries that have a good track record, such as Canada—and I would put Canada at the head of such a list—that will have an effect on the opinion and actions of the United States administration, which even today is under increasing pressure from important think-tanks in the United States, bodies of opinion within the United States.

• 1105

A poll taken within the United States showed that 87% of the American people believe that the world would be better off if no country had nuclear weapons, including their own.

So we have a lot to build on, and it's that building that I represent here today with my colleagues, with the government. We can go forward.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Ms. Berlyn, I believe you had a comment just now.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Thank you. I'd like to pick up on Dr. Trouton's appeal for more consultation. The Department of Foreign Affairs has a structured, ongoing consultative process with human rights NGOs, for instance. It'll be happening in a couple of weeks; it happens every year.

We think that such a process ought to be instituted with respect to the peace and disarmament NGOs in this country, so we would urge you to do that. It's great to be here at these hearings, but they occur only occasionally.

As we said in our brief, the people of Canada, the ones who are concerned, have been pressuring as best they could. I mean, we have to admit that it's not an issue that's in our newspapers every day, and that every citizen is preoccupied by it. But for those who do think of it, those who have taken the trouble to inform themselves, the opinion of the NGOs and the people who work in them.... As I say, they are well informed and disinterested. They have no vested interest, only their concern for the future of the world, you might say. Basically they are all in agreement with what we are saying.

Public opinion in Canada is very much.... I mean, we really do represent it, and we know that, because we've had many cross-Canada tours.

We started in the very early 1980s with the Citizens' Inquiry into Peace and Security. We conducted our own hearings, because at that time there was no consultation at all with the government, and no hearings. We went to 19 communities in Canada. We have 500 or 600 briefs summarized in the report of those hearings. This was just after the Gulf War.

Then Ambassador Roche has done his own series of round tables. We have the 30,000—or how many thousands—Canadians who signed the declaration in conscience, and so on. There's lots of evidence of Canadian public opinion.

So the political will shouldn't be so difficult to create. We do urge that structured consultative process.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Reed.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions perhaps will be more of the how-to variety.

We've been told that it is virtually impossible to have a deadly accurate inventory of how much weapons-grade fissionable material there is in the world at the present time. In itself it poses a serious problem. If we can't get a handle on the inventory, where do we go?

There is also the concern about the clandestine production of nuclear weapons in the future. That is always a possibility, since the knowledge is more widespread than it has ever been. I dare say that one day we will be able to get it off the Internet.

I'll direct this other question to Mr. Klopstock. We were talking about the removal of plutonium from these weapons as the numbers decline. What do you propose we do with the plutonium if we don't look for something such as the use of this plutonium as a fuel, or some such thing that will get rid of it permanently?

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Who was your question directed towards?

Mr. Julian Reed: Well, I directed my last question to Mr. Klopstock, because he brought it up himself. I would welcome answers from anybody to the other two.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Did you want to start with the last first?

Mr. Julian Reed: Sure.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Okay, Mr. Klopstock. Then perhaps Mr. Robinson would like to respond.

• 1110

Mr. Bill Robinson: Yes, certainly. To some extent there will always be a certain amount of doubt about the inventory of nuclear material. Even in the American nuclear program, for example, where there is perhaps the most carefully accounted-for material in the world, there is what they call MUF, material unaccounted for. This is material they simply have lost one way or another in the air ducts, in the ground. It's missing, unaccounted for.

But you can account for the vast majority of it, and you can put that under guard. And, of course, weapons, usable quantities of that material, are not that easy to hide, and they are radioactive. They can be detected in various ways.

There will be a certain amount of doubt, but it will be important to minimize the doubt as much as possible. That calls for us to start dealing with these questions of accounting right away.

We shouldn't be going through partial disarmament treaties, talking about getting rid of a few warheads here and there, and so forth, without having the procedures in place to account for this material and what's happening to it. This is one of the important reasons we should have this process, a nuclear weapons convention surrounding the entire disarmament process as we move towards getting rid of nuclear weapons. That will give us the most possible assured accounting for all these materials.

As for clandestine production, well, as I've noted before, the possibility that it could be done is always going to be inherent in the world. It's highly unlikely, and you have to question why. What would you do with it?

Basically if somebody produced that kind of material, what would happen is that the world would gang up on them in one way or another. The best case may just be that other countries would also reach back into their capability to produce the weapons of mass destruction, and we'd back into a deterrence world.

But what advantage would that have brought to the people who cheat? I'm not sure that there is a major advantage to them, and there would be major disadvantages to them for cheating.

So comparing that with the strong norm that would develop against nuclear weapons, the lack of real advantage to cheating, and the fact that it would be difficult to cheat and not get caught.... I can't say it would be impossible, but it would be very difficult. These factors all suggest that it would probably not occur. That's my opinion.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Briefly, Mr. Klopstock, are you ready to deal with that issue? This hasn't been dealt with before, but could your answer be brief again, as we're out of time.

Mr. Paul Klopstock: Thank you.

Thank you for your question. I'm not a physicist, so I'm not a technician. As Judy said, there's a person who understands the technical aspects of plutonium, Mr. Gordon Edwards. He will be here in two weeks.

But basically, in a nutshell, the process is called vitrification. It means that there is a method of storing plutonium in ceramic cylinders—

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Glass, you encase it in glass.

Mr. Paul Klopstock: Glass. You encase it in glass, and then do not move it. This is a technology called vitrification.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: It's then rendered unusable. Our understanding is that when you take it out of the warheads you can keep it just where it is. You encase it either in ceramic or glass in a process called....

It renders it unusable, unstealable, and so on. It virtually removes any possibility that anyone would get hold of it, or use it. These are very heavy, difficult-to-move objects. We would just store it until we had a better solution.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Madame Debien.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien (Laval East, BQ): Thank you for coming here today. There is an issue, raised I believe by Ms. Berlyn and Mr. Roche, which I would like to explore with you in greater depth. In any case, I would at least like your opinion on a topic we have not yet touched on this morning.

In your briefs, you all propose that the production of fissionable materials—uranium and plutonium—be abolished. This probably means that you indirectly envisage abolishing all forms of nuclear energy. That, at least, would be the logical consequence of your proposal. I don't know whether I have understood you correctly, and I would like to hear your remarks on this.

• 1115

[English]

Mr. Douglas Roche: Thank you, Madame Debien. There are two points to your question. The first deals with a cut-off of the production of fissionable materials. Here Canada has certainly played a leading role at the conference on disarmament in Geneva, and also at the United Nations with resolutions. This is in trying to move the international community to negotiate a ban on the production of fissionable materials. That would certainly go a long way to stopping the production of nuclear weapons.

But this speaks directly to the problem we're facing. There's opposition to this from countries like India and other countries. They say, look, you nuclear weapon states have an immense amount of fissionable material already. So your cutting off the production won't do anything to get rid of your weapons, but you'll stop the proliferation in other countries.

They're saying this is another result of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It's discriminatory. It is allowing those who have nuclear weapons to maintain them, while proscribing the acquisition of nuclear weapons by those who do not have them. That's the very heart of the issue.

The only way we will get negotiations for a cut-off, a ban on the production of fissionable materials is if there is a commitment by the nuclear weapons states that they will enter a process of negotiating their own weapons down to zero. That's what the international debate is all about.

My second point is on nuclear energy. There is a division in the country, and I suppose in Parliament, on the efficacy of nuclear energy. I am not here to discuss nuclear energy per se. I recognize that the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which I uphold and which the Canadian government upholds, provides for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. It provides for safeguarded transmission of nuclear energy. Some people think this is good, some people think it's bad.

In any event, I want to keep the focus of my remarks on nuclear weapons, and the elimination of nuclear weapons. I believe that as we do have safeguards now for the transmission of nuclear materials that can provide energy, we can strengthen those.

We can do so by strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency and the various regimes in the world that are supposed to be tightening up the inspection and verification means to ensure that none of this material is used for weapons.

I want to keep the attention of the committee very sharply focused on the need to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world. This is while recognizing that the developments of nuclear energy is a separate but related subject.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: Madam Chair, I would like to hear Ms. Berlyn's answer.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Berlyn.

[Translation]

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Thank you, Ms. Debien. This is a very important point, which should be clarified. Nuclear energy can be produced without using the raw materials needed to make nuclear weapons. This is a key point. There are different types of reactors available for civilian use. Without discussing the issue of nuclear energy as such, and without saying whether we are for or against it, we can simply point out that a nuclear energy program can be implemented, even if all raw materials required for nuclear weapons—that is, fissionable materials—are eliminated from it.

Ms. Maud Debien: That answers my question. Thank you.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. McWhinney.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: Thank you.

Ambassador Roche, I'd like to raise some issues with you on the strategy of nuclear disarmament. In the late 1980s you and I discussed the issue of the reference to the International Court.

• 1120

It was then mooted before the WHO, and one had a particularly strong court. President Nagendra Singh was still there, as were Judge Elias and Judge Lachs, but as you know, the government of the day decided not to intervene. There was a feeling, which I think you shared, that Canadian intervention might have sharpened the issues before the court and led to a fine judgment by a very strong court.

I'm a bit troubled by the reliance the group here places on the World Court opinion. In technical terms it's the lowest common denominator opinion. Really only the brilliant diplomacy of President Bedjaoui manages to get something into the opinion—if you can call it a majority opinion—on the desire of the states to negotiate. But you and I both know that it's legally non-enforceable. In legal terms, it's a mere precatory wish.

I'm just wondering if the other strategy of legislative acts might not be a fruitful course for your group to follow.

Nobody has mentioned the protocols additional to the Geneva protocols of 1925, the 1978 protocols. If applied, they would outlaw the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq, for example, if a crisis arose.

Do you have any general advice? Would you be suggesting that we consider approaching the court—the present court—again, or would you suggest a stronger emphasis on legislative acts? But then it would be more step-by-step type of legislation, like the Geneva protocols you referred to.

Mr. Douglas Roche: Thank you Mr. McWhinney, and thank you for your own leadership on this issue, and your brilliant book, which has certainly provided a basis for much of our own advanced thinking.

You have spoken about the International Court of Justice, and I think we should just take a moment now to focus on what it actually said.

In a split decision upheld by the president of the court, the court affirmed that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would generally contravene all aspects of humanitarian law. However, in an extreme example—the need for self-defence—the court could not decide whether the use of nuclear weapons in such a circumstance would be legal.

The problem they got into was that they put those two questions in the same paragraph. Had they separated them, it was clear from all the statements and the subsequent voting of the members that the vote would have been about 10 to 4 for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, a prohibition on it.

Nonetheless, notwithstanding the above, the court then went on to unanimously affirm.... Here's the highest legal authority in the world. If we're going to discount or dismiss, as some—not around this table, but in places of high authority—are wont to do, the International Court of Justice advisory opinion, that is to send the world into the next century with militarism rather than international law as our chief criterion for how we're going to act.

It is to the credit of the Government of Canada that the Government of Canada has affirmed—in the document this committee was instrumental in producing—that the development of international law would be the highest priority. Canada would work to develop international law. How then can Canada turn around and diminish, or be part of a NATO consortium that is not only diminishing but rejecting, the opinion of the highest legal authority in the world that there must be negotiations to conclude.

I believe that left to itself, Canada would want to have such negotiations. All the value system of the Canadian government and the Canadian people is to move forward in international law, but it's the NATO pressure.

All right, we then have to take the bull by the horns here and put our own pressure on NATO. If we are to remain in NATO, NATO cannot do an act on Canada that says, okay, you just keep quiet while we keep our nuclear weapons. This is an affront to the people of the world, to the United Nations and to the values of Canada.

So in answer to your question, sir, I do not myself recommend going back to the court at this time. I think it will just muddy the waters, so to speak. The court has spoken clearly enough with respect to the need for negotiations. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is going to be reviewed in the year 2000. There's a run-up to it now with prepcoms every year.

• 1125

I believe if sufficient progress is not made in what the nuclear weapons states committed themselves to in 1995, which would be to a systematic progress toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, and if that progress is not definable in the year 2000, the Non-Proliferation Treaty will unravel; and I take as my guide in using that word “unravel” our own neighbour of Mexico. Mexico, our own partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement, has said, sir, on three public occasions, one of which was its own testimony before the International Court of Justice, that absent progress on implementing article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mexico will withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the year 2000. I think those are words we ought to consider very, very seriously.

Other countries are also disenchanted by this discrimination. In the case of India, which of course has not signed the NPT on the grounds that it is discriminatory, it is saying, we're not going to go into the next century as second-class citizens.

The nuclear weapon states have to realize their obligation to humanity to enter a process of negotiations. As Mr. Robinson said, nobody expects it's going to take place overnight. The most informed judgments are that even if you had negotiations, it would take a quarter of a century, and some are even saying up to half a century, to get down to zero.

All the problems associated with getting to zero are sometimes said to be why we can't do anything. It's quite the reverse. We must start now to address those problems, and I would suggest we address them not by going back to the court but by legislative action, by parliamentary action, and by a commitment of this country, Canada, to help lead the way to save the NPT.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you. Mr. Sauvageau is next.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): I think Daniel wants to take 30 seconds of my time to make a short announcement.

Mr. Daniel Turp: Madam Chair, I believe that colleagues from the Conservative Party and New Democratic Party—and doubtless colleagues from the Reform Party, if they were here—will wish to join with the Bloc Québécois in expressing their dissatisfaction with the Speaker of the House of Commons' decision not to have an emergency debate on Iraq.

This morning, the decision not to have an emergency debate on Iraq was confirmed. We believe that Parliament is aware such a debate should be held. The issue is urgent, and I wanted to express the message clearly in the presence of the parliamentary secretary. I think it is urgent that the debate be held, and not be held solely here in committee. I wanted those non-government organizations interested in the issue to witness the government's reluctance to hold a debate in Parliament itself on an issue which is so important.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I think that's a pretty blanket statement. I'm not sure there's not going to be a debate on Iraq, if and when the time arrives. It's a hypothetical situation.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I did want to give Mr. Turp a few seconds of my time, but perhaps not to Mr. McWhinney. I am generous, but there are limits. So may I put my two questions?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No. I've not recognized Mr. McWhinney, either.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I greatly appreciated all the testimony we have heard here. It has helped us gain a better understanding of the wide-ranging problems we will be studying in the coming weeks and months. I clearly saw positions the Canadian government could adopt quickly. The first position, put forward by Mr. Robinson, I believe, involves a zone free of all Canadian government nuclear weapons. I feel this could represent a first step—internally, in government action plans—that would not require so much international support but rather support from the Canadian public. I think this is a good idea.

I would like to complete a question put by Ms. Debien, when Ms. Berlyn and Mr. Robinson talked about abolishing production of fissionable materials and of nuclear energy. I know that Mr. Roche didn't want to talk about that, but I want the point to be clear so that we argue it properly in the debate. Can we abolish production of fissionable materials, while continuing to have a nuclear energy program? If so, how?

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Ms. Maud Debien: Yes, how can we do that?

Ms. Judith Berlyn: The raw materials used to produce nuclear weapons are different from those used to generate nuclear energy. In order to make nuclear weapons, you need one of two raw materials. You can either use highly enriched uranium, which is nothing like the uranium that occurs naturally in the soil. The uranium is enriched through a very, very complicated process, and you need a huge production facility. This is not what you use in nuclear energy reactors.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I see.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: You can also use plutonium, another substance not essential to the production of nuclear energy. These are the two raw materials used to make bombs: separated plutonium, and highly enriched uranium. Neither one nor the other are needed to generate nuclear energy.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Right. So the Canadian government could take the lead internally, and establish the country as a zone free of all nuclear weapons and all circulating nuclear weapons, such as on submarines, without any impact on nuclear energy. Is that right? Have I understood you correctly?

Ms. Judith Berlyn: That is absolutely right.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Fine. So that is something we can do internally. Externally, let's come out with some concrete action the Canadian government could take. Let's think about what we did with antipersonnel mines. Perhaps we could begin by encouraging countries to sign a treaty abolishing the use of nuclear weapons. You can debate the principle, but if the Canadian government wants to come up with action it can take quickly, to move toward a consensus, isn't that a possibility?

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Yes, and there's also the issue of being on alert. Those would be the two main issues.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Thank you very much.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Thank you.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before us today and for showing the kind of cooperation and collaboration that there could be between NGOs and government.

In looking at Ambassador Moher's presentation to us, I'm posing a question to correspond with the recommendations made to us by Mr. Morgan, by asking him to focus on the recommendations and respond to my question; that is, are the steps in the outline given to us by the ambassador realistic? Are they sufficient? Are they pertinent? How do the recommendations you make stand vis-à-vis the position of the ambassador?

Mr. Douglas Roche: Madam Chair, just before my colleague Mr. Morgan answers that question, I want to ensure that Mr. Turp does get a response to the reference he made to NGO opinion concerning possible military action against Iraq. I want to state that we do not intend to get into the question of how Parliament conducts its business. Please do not take my comments in that respect.

But because he asked for NGO opinion on this matter, I want to make it clear that we are unalterably opposed to unilateral military action against Iraq. We believe that if military action ever becomes necessary it can only be done under the auspices of the Security Council of the United Nations through implementation of article 43. That would be the only legal action that could be taken. But before such military action would be contemplated, there is far more diplomacy that still needs to be done in negotiations and so on. I think Canada should be supporting strongly, and playing a role in, the development of new mediation, conciliatory, and negotiating techniques to advance a resolution of this problem in a peaceful manner.

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[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp: I am very happy to hear you say that, because it is in line with our party's position. Our members will defend that position in Parliament.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Excuse me, sir.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Did I lose my question?

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No, you didn't lose your question.

Mr. Morgan.

Mr. David Morgan: Thank you.

I got a copy of Mr. Moher's statements just recently, so I haven't had a chance to go over them closely. The conclusions I came to in my summary statement, which I think you have before you, are that working from within NATO to change its policy is an illusion. It hasn't worked in the past. I don't think it's likely to work in the future. On the key issues of NATO retention of nuclear weapons, I don't think Canada will have any chance to change the policy from within NATO.

On the big ship NATO, Canada is first officer. The first officer is allowed to grumble a little about the way the ship is going and where it's heading, but he doesn't contradict the orders of the captain. I think it's only by telling this ship we're going to get off if it keeps on its present course that we can really have influence.

This influence is not a question of Canada versus the United States or anything like that. As my colleague Mr. Roche has pointed out, there's a very large constituency in the United States for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and no country in the world is more trusted by the people of the United States than Canada. We have most trusted nation status. If we act on our own and stop acting like the first officer on the big ship NATO, I think we can have a profound effect on the course of events.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Are you satisfied, Ms. Augustine?

Ms. Jean Augustine: I would like to focus on the third recommendation, that Canada join in a quest for common security with other middle powers. Could you speak a little more to the three points you've made in that recommendation?

Mr. David Morgan: The first of those points was that Canada immediately de-alert nuclear weapons. That was the first of those three points. The Cold War has technically been over since 1991, but it's not generally realized the nuclear weapons are still on alert status. This means the danger of accidental nuclear war remains very high.

Also, it has always been a policy of the NATO alliance, dealing with section 7-3(b), that NATO always clings to the right of first use of nuclear weapons. This is not first strike, but in response to a conventional attack it would have the right to use nuclear weapons. This is a very dangerous policy. It was a policy the Soviet Union rejected. It's only recently, since the plan to expand NATO has been announced, that the Russians have gone back on that policy of theirs and now also have a first-use policy.

This is partly what made me change my thinking. In the situation we're in now, it's no longer a scared strike period. We're getting bolder in our feelings about nuclear weapons.

Third, to sign before the year 2000 a convention that sets out a binding timetable for the abolition of nuclear weapons...certainly we're all in accord on the need for that. It's only with such a convention that a serious, integrated plan for getting rid of these weapons can go ahead.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

I would to add a little something, a question of my own. I suppose it's directed mainly to Mr. Klopstock.

You talk about the political will. Perhaps you're absolutely right in that area. The one area that concerns me is where you're advocating, or Mr. Klopstock is, the abolition of nuclear power. When you talk about nuclear power, nuclear weapons.... I believe Mr. Roche also said there was an association that was not quite well defined. Nuclear power in some cases is the only form of energy in remote areas in third world countries, in countries that are underdeveloped. We can argue that may be development isn't the best thing for some societies.

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I'd like you to expand a little more on that.

Mr. Paul Klopstock: There's no mistake that we're here today addressing the issue of nuclear weapons. The question has come up—your question and a couple of other questions—concerning the consequences for the civil nuclear power industry. The fact is that it is possible to separate the two issues because the fuels necessary to create a nuclear weapon are not necessarily the same as the fuels necessary to make a civil nuclear reactor function.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): It takes only a minor conversion, does it not?

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Major.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I don't mean minor. I don't think I could do it on my kitchen stove. Mr. Reed thinks I could; he has tasted my cooking.

I guess there is a misconception there, at least on my part.

Ms. Judith Berlyn: Our understanding is—and as I say, you will have a chance to really home in on the scientists in a couple of weeks—that it takes a huge facility certainly to enrich uranium. Uranium enrichment plants cover acres. You couldn't hide them underground or in a mountain or anything. There's no way anybody could be enriching uranium to the point where it's usable to make a weapon without that being detected.

It's the same thing with separated plutonium, I believe. I'm not sure of the process. Again, the plutonium you need for weapons has to be....

Mr. Bill Robinson: Plutonium can be separated in smaller facilities. That is an issue. Plutonium is not currently used as a fuel in civil nuclear reactors. There is a risk in the future that it may be used as a fuel because it could be used as a fuel in reactors. This is the reason why we think it's a bad idea to use plutonium from weapons in reactors as a fuel, because we think that will encourage a civil reactor economy that involves the use of plutonium. That would be a weapons-usable material that would be available to people.

Plutonium is produced by all reactors that operate, but it's part of the waste product and it would have to be separated from the waste product. In that sense, reactors and nuclear weapons cannot be separated, but that is a problem the world has to deal with already, because there are huge quantities of radioactive waste already produced that could be mined from plutonium. The problem for the world right now is protecting that waste, preventing plutonium from being extracted and used. That could be done with civil reactors continuing to operate, because the problem isn't any different, or you could eliminate civil reactors, but again you would still have to protect all of that waste. That's the issue. The civil reactors do not make or break the issue of controlling nuclear-weapons-usable material.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you. Perhaps it's best left for our next hearings. Every time Canada speaks of selling a CANDU reactor, we get the letters, saying we're being very insensitive and very foolish in selling these reactors.

Mr. Bill Robinson: The same sorts of safeguards that will prevent people from developing the bomb in the post-abolition world are the safeguards that we think will prevent them from developing bombs when we sell them CANDU reactors. If we don't have confidence in those safeguards, we ought to reconsider selling the reactors.

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The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

I have some other business. The committee has been asked to meet with a parliamentary delegation from Lithuania, including the chair of the Parliamentary Group for Relations with Canada, and the chair of the foreign relations committee of the Seimas. We have time during our meeting on Tuesday morning, February 17. Does the committee agree to meet with them?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Of course.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I thank you all very much for being here this morning. It's a subject about which I think we could go on and on. I don't think a three-hour committee meeting really adequately deals with it, but I thank you for your presentations and your answers.

The meeting is adjourned.