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]

Tuesday, May 8, 2001

• 0905

[English]

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

You will recall that when we did our report on nuclear weapons, we suggested that the ambassador for disarmament appear before the committee on an annual basis to brief us and bring us up to date on what the progress is on nuclear disarmament. We're very pleased to have Mr. Westdal here again before us. He's been before the committee many times, so I don't have to speak to his expertise in the area. We recognize that, sir.

Thank you for coming this morning.

Colleagues, I'll perhaps remind you that this afternoon at 3:30 we're going to have a joint meeting with the Senate on the Middle Powers Initiative, which is sort of along the same lines. Obviously it's not a... what would we call it?

A voice: It's an informal meeting.

The Chair: It's an informal meeting. In other words, it's not a structured meeting of the committee. However, I won't keep this going any further.

Mr. Westdal, maybe you could speak, and then we'll open it up for questions.

Mr. Chris Westdal (Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations for Disarmament): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of Parliament.

It's my duty, as you mentioned, but it's also an honour for me to appear before this committee annually as was agreed in the government's response to the very impressive report this committee produced three years ago. That has been a very valuable and an unusually specific policy bedrock for me and my colleagues in multilateral arms control and disarmament.

What I propose to do this morning is to briefly talk about several significant non-proliferation arms control and disarmament developments. I'll try to avoid that long phrase; the acronym used is NACD for non-proliferation arms control and disarmament. Anyway, as to significant developments in this field since I appeared before you 14 months ago, some of those developments have been encouraging and some not so.

I'll give you the good news first. The NPT review conference a year ago, which was expected to fail, had a highly positive outcome instead, including an agreed action plan of practical steps toward disarmament. Those are the 13 steps that Senator Roche and his Middle Powers Initiative colleagues will be discussing with you this afternoon.

Here's the bad news. Mirroring the current lack of political will to advance its NACD agenda, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, to which I'm accredited, remains deadlocked. Along with it progress is deadlocked on key elements of that action plan, including particularly the FMCT, that is, the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which would ban the production of fissile material for weapons. It would include negotiations of an FMCT—FISBAN, you'll hear it called. It also stalls—

The Chair: Sorry, did you say fizz-ban?

Mr. Chris Westdal: FISBAN. That's to ban the production of fissile materials.

The Chair: If they don't ban it, it will become the fizz-bang, will it?

Mr. Chris Westdal: Whiz bang, I think it is. Exactly.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Chris Westdal: We don't need new acronyms, Mr. Chairman; we can't manage the ones we've got.

The Chair: Anyway, you're right.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Let's go straight to another one. In that work program that is stalled are also proposals to deal with the prevention of an arms race in outer space, called PAROS—“prevention of an arms race in outer space”. That's not good news from the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Then there's some news that's not quite clear yet, the new NACD approaches referred to as the new framework for security and stability of the Bush administration, aiming to add defence to deterrence to counter the new post-Cold War threats proliferation has wrought. That's the first aim.

The second aim is to maximize U.S. flexibility through leadership by example, and I quote, “avoiding the constraints of multilateralism”—the mutual constraints of multilateralism, I might add. As we all know from the headlines, intensive, direct, bilateral, and NATO consultations are under way, as are fundamental defence policy reviews in Washington.

• 0910

We agree with our American colleagues and partners that the evolution of geostrategic realities since the end of the Cold War necessitates ongoing verification of the strategic approaches that underpin our security. It is also, however, clear that revision of the fundamental basis of the global security order is a process that must proceed with due deliberation and due regard for the sensibilities and responses of all major players if strategic stability is to be maintained. Accordingly, we very much look forward to engaging in this debate with the United States, with other allies, and other concerned states.

Let me touch briefly on that government statement I referred to. Our policy in this sphere and my instructions as ambassador for disarmament are based now, as they were 14 months ago, on the 1999 government statement “Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: Advancing Canadian Objectives”, and that statement was in part a response to the report of this committee. It's overarching objective is the elimination of nuclear weapons through the determined implementation of the NPT, the non-proliferation treaty signed in 1970, as well as of the treaties and agreements designed to support and enhance it.

There were specific undertakings, and I won't rehearse them in detail: to try to achieve the universalization of the NPT, that is to bring Cuba, India, Pakistan, and Israel in; to strengthen the review process of the treaty to achieve permanence with accountability—that is the phrase. It was clear at the 2000 meeting of the NPT that the review process was working and that it was much stronger than it had been in the past. It involved continued engagement to advance the CTBT's entry into force, that is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which you know is derailed in Washington at the moment. It involved further FMCT negotiations, the fissile ban, and discussion of disarmament and the prevention of an arms race in outer space in the CD in Geneva. And it included encouragement of the bilateral START II process and further cuts under a START III. It also involved promoting a positive NATO role in the field of non-proliferation arms control and disarmament.

Let me report on some of those goals. One would start with the NPT review conference. The successful outcome exceeded the expectations we discussed in some detail when I was last here, at a time when the NACD climate was very difficult. There had been failure to agree at the preparatory committee meetings, and that failure raised the alarming spectre of a palpable collapse of the treaty at least year's review conference, which was, you'll remember, the first since the treaty was was indefinitely extended with Canada's active participation in 1995. For only the third time in the treaty's 25-year history, consensus was achieved on a final document of, apparently, incontestable significance. The document includes strong language on South Asian nuclear testing and on compliance in Iraq and North Korea. It calls on treaty holdouts by name, Israel, India, Pakistan, and Cuba, to join. It also includes a constructive action plan for the next five-year review period and a further strengthened review process, all of which serve to strengthen the credibility of that treaty at a key juncture.

The unequivocal undertaking—you'll hear that phrase often—made by the nuclear weapon states in that action plan to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals, and that's an unprecedentedly clear commitment to the elimination of nuclear arsenals, also marked a significant step forward for nuclear disarmament. You may remember that Canada's role, in addition to promoting our own goals, as I just described, was also to chair the main committee II, so it was called, on regional issues, particularly Middle East and other South Asian regional issues. In that role we helped to broker crucial compromise language, principally about Iraq, which clinched consensus in favour of that final document in overtime, the day after the meeting was to end.

• 0915

Throughout the last half of last year—I refer now to our NATO objective—one of the highest priorities of our team, here and particularly in Brussels, was NATO's review of its NACD policies, and Canada was a driving force in that process from day one. Release of a public report on the results of the review process in December 2000 was a key Canadian objective, which report, at our urging, contained an important reaffirmation of the NPT review conference's unequivocal commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons. In other words, all the members of NATO reiterated in a NATO document the commitment they had made in the NPT.

Promoting the NACD agenda in a NATO context and trying to build agreement to reduce the political value ascribed to nuclear weapons remain key objectives. I stress that phrase “political value of nuclear weapons”, because that was very much front and centre in the report of your committee, saying that's what we should aim to do.

With the CTBT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the prospects, I am sorry to report, are not much improved since I last addressed you. The treaty, to come into force, requires the signature of 44 countries that have active nuclear programs, and we're still 13 ratifications short of the 44. A lot is riding on the second entry into force conference, to be held in September in New York, a venue and timing Canada pushed for, to maximize the treaty's prospects in Washington, arguably the key holdout among the 13. Convincing the world's biggest nuclear power of the national security benefits and the symbolic importance of CTBT ratification will be among our top priorities in the months ahead.

Meanwhile the ongoing moratorium globally on nuclear testing is critically important. We should want to raise the political barrier against testing to a decisive height. We should want to make the perceived anticipated political cost of nuclear testing simply prohibitive.

I have a few words now about the Conference on Disarmament. It's the world's sole multilateral negotiating body in the field of disarmament. It produced the NPT. It produced the Chemical Weapons Convention. It produced the CTBT. It would be the scene of negotiations of an FMCT, for example. But it's now well into its third year without agreement on a program of work. As the first president of this year's session, I attempted to broker consensus on a work program that would have included establishing standing mechanisms to discuss nuclear disarmament and the non-weaponization of outer space, as well as re-establishing the ad hoc committee to negotiate an effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices. That's why we need that acronyms, FMCT, a fissile ban. That was in the work program we were promoting.

At the UN last fall Canada led the charge for immediate FMCT negotiations in Geneva. Despite that success, the fact is that several states, particularly in the G-21, which is the old non-aligned movement in a CD context, are reluctant to address fissile materials before dealing more effectively with nuclear disarmament. Indeed, we need to recognize that even the strongest proponents of an FMCT occasionally feel ambivalent about the measure. It is, of course, an obvious necessary step toward disarmament—at some point you have to stop making fissile material for weapons, if you intend to disarm. But without decisive progress toward that goal, an FMCT is a hard sell. It strikes many as marginal at best, given that there are mountains of fissile material extant in the world, and above all, blatantly discriminatory.

• 0920

I'll dwell a moment longer on the log-jam at the conference. Over the last several years what the conference has been trying to do is agree on a work program that is “balanced and comprehensive enough”—and that's a Chinese phrase—to gain consensus support, however reluctant that support might be in some quarters. The closest we've come is CD/1624. It's named after my Brazilian colleague in Geneva, Ambassador Amorim, and it's agreed as a basis for further intensive consultations. In a nutshell, what it would include is four ad hoc committees that would have mandates, two of which would have negotiating mandates, to negotiate an FMCT and to negotiate negative security assurances. Two of those ad hoc committees would not have negotiating mandates, they would discuss nuclear disarmament and the prevention of an arms race in outer space. That work program would also include five special coordinators, who would deal with subjects ranging from land mines to transparency, to the functioning, the agenda, and the membership of the conference on disarmament. So that's the work program we were promoting.

There are problems, there are knots within knots, and there are linkages. Some of them are explicit and overt, some of them aren't. But the most visible are, and the ostensible reasons for the impasse are that China will not live without a negotiating mandate for PAROS, the prevention of an arms race in outer space, which the United States won't live with. The United States will not agree to a negotiating mandate for an ad hoc committee dealing with the prevention of an arms race in outer space. Meanwhile, the G-21 aren't satisfied with the mandate given the ad hoc committee dealing with nuclear disarmament, and Pakistan and perhaps some other parties resist the negotiation of a fissile ban, on grounds that existing stocks of fissile material must be addressed as well and at the same time.

As to the problem of not being able to move ahead substantively there, even informally, without agreement on a formal work program, the roadblock is quite plain. The United States offer is straightforward: we will deal with—i.e., we will talk about—nuclear disarmament and PAROS; we only do that reluctantly, and we'll only do it if at the same time we are negotiating a fissile ban; but we will not talk about nuclear disarmament and the prevention of an arms race in outer space if we're not at the same time negotiating an FMCT, and we're not, so we aren't.

Given current major power relations, dominated as they are by doctrinal upheaval, related security declarations, and gestures of great sweep, we were disappointed, but we were not surprised, that our CD presidency failed to achieve work program consensus. We remain, nonetheless, committed to working with all CD members to put that vital institution back to work.

I'll say a few words about these 13 steps, this NPT review conference action program.

The Chair: I don't want to interrupt you, but how much longer do you think you'll be? Because we want to leave time for questions and we were only going until 10 o'clock. We might go until 10:10, but...

Mr. Chris Westdal: Forgive me. I think what I should do is leap through what I have and maybe conclude in about ten minutes. Would that be all right?

The Chair: Well...

Mr. Chris Westdal: Five minutes? Leap ahead?

The Chair: Yes, five would be better if we want some questions.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Let me then do that for you. It will be a bit fragmentary, but nonetheless...

The Chair: You do have a written statement, and maybe you could let the committee clerk have a copy of that for us.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Indeed. Actually, I think I would only be another few minutes, so let me just complete this without any elaboration.

The Chair: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought.

Mr. Chris Westdal: It's all right.

If we talk about the 13 steps, obviously we're frustrated that we've been unable to break the log-jam in the CD, ultimately because of the absence of political will in key capitals. The paralysis of the conference on disarmament is symptomatic of a broader lack of political will to translate the undertakings of the NPT review conference into early concrete action. We're very active in trying to find ways to turn this situation around, and as we speak this morning, representatives of the Middle Powers Initiative, an NGO that has crafted a detailed action plan on ways to realize the disarmament steps in the review conference document, are meeting with officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs. I know they'll be meeting with you later today. We look forward to a thorough exploration of options and ideas on the way ahead later this week, during the government's second annual consultation with civil society, another call in your committee's report on the government's response.

• 0925

Now I'll conclude with a few words on U.S. policy.

Multilateral negotiation of binding international instruments has been a key element in the successful pursuit of global restraint, reduction, and elimination of important weapon systems over the past 50 years. Throughout that period, the participation and frequently the leadership of the United States in such endeavours has been essential. Initial signals from the Bush administration cast some doubt as to whether that participation, let alone leadership, can be counted upon in the future.

There has been good news, to be sure. The possibility of unilateral reductions in U.S. nuclear forces is welcome and would indeed fulfil one of the key steps toward disarmament agreed on at the NPT review conference. The administration's apparent reluctance to reconsider the CTBT is disquieting, however, as is the fact that unilateral reductions, while welcome, would lack the guarantees of verifiability and irreversibility associated with a negotiated arms control instrument. But it is too soon to tell. Consultations with allies are only just under way. We are assured that the results of those consultations will help shape policy choices.

As I said in my introduction, the new approach holds the welcome premise of deep arms reductions, but missile defence could be problematic, depending on its nature, context, and perceptions. And should missile defence prove practical, it should be accommodated within very carefully adapted post-Cold War global security conceptions and architecture. It should be adapted in ways that sustain the stability at all times, enhance effective global security prospects, and contribute to the fulfilment of our nuclear non-proliferation arms control and disarmament commitments.

For Canada's part, we remain constructive multilateralists. No opportunity will be missed to impress on our American interlocutors the direct security benefits and symbolic importance of multilateral engagement in general, and of CTBT ratification in particular.

The NACD calendar is particularly charged. I'll conclude by telling you a few of the prominent things on our forward calendar. Key events this summer include the UN conference on small arms and light weapons, the final session of the ad hoc group negotiating a compliance protocol to the biological and toxin weapons convention in Geneva. In late September, Canada will host the annual plenary meeting of the missile technology control regime, the MTCR, in Ottawa, where we will assume the chair for the coming year. In the same week, Minister Manley has agreed, in principle, to head Canada's delegation to the CTBT entry-into-force conference in New York. On January 1 Canada will take up the chair of the G-8 non-proliferation experts group as part of our G-8 presidency in 2002.

There will be many opportunities, then, to test our energy and our commitment in the months ahead. I look forward to reporting on these when I next appear before this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Westdal.

Before I turn it over to other questions, let me ask you a totally unfair question. You're one of the most experienced Canadians in this area of nuclear disarmament. Considering the background you have just given us... We understand what the Canadian government's policy is and the work you're doing to try to achieve this policy. But going back to the first recommendation of this committee—that we reduce the political legitimacy and value of nuclear weapons, with a view to ultimately achieving total nuclear disarmament—we are all agreed.

You've told us about the CTBT, we've got NMD, we've got the new American administration, we've got India, Pakistan, Israel, etc. Not while you are wearing your government hat, but as a mere citizen, tell us, do you think we're going forward or moving backwards on this business? I'll be very honest with you, after listening to you this morning it looks to me like we're going backwards, not forwards. If we have to be pessimistic, we should be pessimistic. We want to know what attitude we should have and where we really are.

• 0930

I know what you're doing. I know what the government's policy is. But where do you think we are, in terms of the world's progress on this?

Mr. Chris Westdal: I don't have personal views that are relevant. I've learned in this job...

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: But pour some liquid into the empty vessels before you. You have to have some views.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Of course I have personal views, but my point is that I have learned in this job that my personal views are not the views, necessarily, of the Canadian government, and I have no right to use my office as ambassador for disarmament as a vehicle for my personal views. I'd like to make this point.

The Chair: Then do you think the government is encouraged or discouraged with the progress we're making?

Mr. Chris Westdal: To answer your question as best I might, yes, of course there have been setbacks with respect to the headline goal of this committee's report—reducing the political value of nuclear weapons. This is no secret.

India and Pakistan might seem well content with the status they perceive their nuclear development to have given them, even though one might feel they have subjected themselves to unprecedented risk of catastrophe. At the same time, owing in large part to the deterioration of its conventional forces, Russia has re-emphasised the important role of nuclear weapons in its security doctrines. NATO has repeated that nuclear weapons play a vital role.

So, yes, there has been re-rationalization of nuclear weapons. It's been going on for some years now. And the hopes that probably peaked at the 1995 review conference that nuclear weapons might be marginalized and that even though we didn't have a clear idea how they'd ultimately be eliminated, we were increasingly confident that through a process of marginalization and reduced political value and prominence the danger those arsenals pose would be reduced...

Now, those are the setbacks one can immediately list. But there are tides and currents and waves here, and we don't want to get them confused. It's important first of all to say that ballistic missile defence is not incompatible with nuclear disarmament. In fact, Colin Powell himself evoked the deeply held conviction of Ronald Regan that the only way to get rid of nuclear weapons was ultimately to make them obsolete. It needs to be remembered as well that Republican administrations in recent history have brought about more disarmament, including the unilateral disarmament steps taken by this president's father, than have Democrats.

There is no reason to despair, particularly given that when obliged at the NPT review conference to account for their nuclear arsenals and policies and their fidelity or otherwise to that treaty and the legal obligation their signature entailed, the nuclear weapons states reached agreement and accepted compromises—some say papered over differences. Of course they had to say something about the ABM Treaty; they talked about strengthening and adapting it. But they did choose to support the basic framework of the NPT, to reaffirm their faith in it and to adopt an unprecedentedly clear work program.

So if one looks with a slightly longer vantage point at these trends and developments since the 1995 meeting's indefinite extension of the NPT, there have been setbacks in terms of the political value nuclear weapons are perceived to bring to their possessors.

• 0935

At the same time, there has been continued progress under START II. There have been reductions in NATO. There has now been a testing moratorium for some years despite the fact that the CTBT is derailed, and despite the fact that it's very difficult to persuade countries in South Asia, for example, that they should sign the CTBT when the Americans haven't ratified the CTBT, and others have conditioned their approval of that document on the American action.

But to come back to the general point you raise, I find it liberating not to be governed so much by whether I'm optimistic or pessimistic or hopeful or cheerful that day or not. Rather, I feel driven by what I feel to be a natural duty to contain, control, and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons, and in the meanwhile to take as effective action as we possibly can to deal with their dangers—the dangers of accidents, the dangers of unauthorized launches—particularly as, starved for cash, the Russian arsenal rusts and ages.

Those dangers have to be dealt with. The dangers of those mountains of fissile material that I talked about have to be dealt with. The dangers of proliferation are exactly what are being visited upon us. Missile defence is an attempt to deal with the post-Cold War threats that proliferation has wrought. This new framework that the Americans want to explore involves adding a measure of missile defence to counter these new threats, because these new threats did not exist in the Cold War.

To further try to tie the relevance of our policies, I would just add that Canada's record with respect to non-proliferation is very solid indeed. We have argued that without disarmament there will be proliferation. There hasn't been dramatic disarmament. There has been proliferation. The result is that we now face, and the Americans now face, risks that they didn't face in the Cold War, and risks that they feel their Cold War deterrence does not adequately address.

So they're searching for new ways to counter those threats. They're exploring, and we're talking to them. You know the kinds of questions and concerns we have expressed and others have expressed about the potential responses of other major players to various kinds of missile defence.

The Chair: Okay. The waters are murky, as usual.

Mr. Obhrai, you're sitting anxiously at the edge of your seat.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, CA): Yes, I am.

I would like to thank you for coming, Ambassador. I also would like to thank you for the lovely time you gave us in Geneva. It was a very nice lunch on the shores of the lake. It was good company and a pleasurable trip.

Do you agree, sir?

An hon. member: Yes.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: It's rare I say these things, you know.

In your presentation you used a lot of acronyms. It's like being in a maze that goes all over the place. You are now the expert, and I would like to focus on two points here. Then, if you'll excuse me, I'm supposed to be on House duty. I will have to leave. Nevertheless, it was nice to see you.

The Chair: You're not trying to get another lunch out of this, are you?

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Yes, yes. You never know, I might go back to Geneva, and they wouldn't treat me nicely.

With regard to the issue on small arms, reports have indicated that the objectives and everything that were supposed to come out of it were kind of a disaster. Well, I shouldn't use the word “disaster”, but failure. Primary responsibility, if I understand it right, rests with those in charge of the negotiations and the lame attitude they took on this issue. Of course, this impacts not the bigger picture of nuclear arms but the smaller picture of conflicts taking place in smaller countries and so on. Perhaps you can enlighten us on that issue, what's going on there and why everybody is so disappointed in this area.

• 0940

The other issue—and you touched on it when the chair asked you for your personal view—is that everybody right now is looking at this missile defence issue. The argument is that this missile defence system will have a contrary effect to nuclear disarmament because it is going to make irrelevant the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Am I right with that name?

Mr. Chris Westdal: Yes.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: I got one right.

Russia and China will pull out of this ABM Treaty. To those who oppose the missile defence field, that is the key element toward achieving nuclear disarmament. What is your feeling? I know most of us haven't made up our minds on missile defence, but this is the contrary argument going on. Under the proliferation treaty aspect, of course, it comes to the point you have mentioned, that post-Russia, post-Cold War, or post-whatever, proliferation has increased due to the nature of the former Soviet Union industry.

Maybe you could talk to us about some of these issues.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Thank you for your memory of our lunch together in Geneva only three weeks ago, I think. It's good to see you both again.

On the question of small arms and light weapons in this conference coming up this summer, I think I'm the bearer of good news in the sense that prior to this recent preparatory committee meeting—and these conferences are always preceded by three or four of them—my impression, although I'm not directly involved in that file, was that there were a lot of wheels spinning. It had been months and no leadership for the conference was chosen. There was a struggle between groups as to who would preside over it.

Parties were all over the map about whether it would deal with just illegitimate, illegal, and illicit trade in arms or whether it would also deal with legal, legitimate, and above-board trade in arms. Some wanted to try to take very specific steps and others thought that only the vaguest political kind of statement would be possible.

This is very frustrating in a field where, as you were saying, they may be small weapons, but they're doing the mass of the killing these days and have been for some time, one at a time.

This last preparatory meeting, thanks to the work of Ambassador dos Santos, the Mozambican president of the preparatory process... The leadership of the conference will be provided by a Colombian, the Colombian ambassador in Geneva. He's very good. There will be a British chair number two, and the Japanese are involved.

It sounds like a lot of small detail, but until it's sorted out, there's no prospect for a successful meeting. It is now sorted out. I think at this stage in that process, one can really only hope for a political declaration. Bear in mind we're talking about very deeply held convictions. You can't talk about small arms and light weapons trade in the world without dealing with the attitudes that countries have about the right to bear arms. In our own case—

The Chair: That's the code word for the NRA. Would that be the correct way to interpret your remarks?

Mr. Chris Westdal: Exactly. There are very deeply held and well-financed opinions in this field. There is an enormous industry, of course, that's interested in rich flows of small arms. They're a contagion. But with respect to the coming meeting, I would say that the prospects are enhanced recently.

With respect to the ABM Treaty, I know that was discussed at some length with the minister not long ago. I would only want to try to put some perspective on these various treaties.

• 0945

I think there is a risk of self-fulfilling prophecy in overstating the value and current relevance of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. It needs underlining that it is a bilateral treaty. It was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union, which doesn't exist any more. That does not mean the Russians are not legitimate and legal heirs of the agreement the Soviet Union signed, but it's important in respect of historical context. It was an agreement signed to stop what had been an astonishing race of nuclear missiles, until there were tens of thousands of missiles—and you can only die once. So we were talking about how many times your ashes would be bounced. We got that far before this much revered ABM Treaty put a brake on that by saying, we won't have defences, because that will just provoke more missiles. It put the brakes on when we were at tens of thousands, and we're talking about single weapons that in their largest forms, are the equivalent of 50 million or more tons of TNT, and we're talking about tens of thousands of weapons.

So we should not think the ABM Treaty stopped us at a very safe pass—I want to add that by way of perspective. It codified mutually assured destruction. That poses some problems for nuclear disarmament, if you've codified and intend to live forever by a doctrine of mutually assured destruction by nuclear means. It poses far more problems for nuclear disarmament, for example, than does missile defence. I'm much more attached to the MPT. It's a much more fundamental, enduring, basic piece of multilateral NACD architecture than the ABM Treaty.

All that said about the ABM Treaty, we cannot, without doing grave damage to our prospects, simply break and change irrevocably or stand on their heads agreements that have played important roles in trying to contain the dangers we faced. And it needs bearing in mind that the nuclear dangers we face now, however ominous and compelling, are not the nightmares we faced at the time the ABM Treaty was signed and before that race in nuclear missiles was brought to an end and reined in. We live in a relatively less dangerous time. With the Cold War palpably behind us and us beginning to get over some of the inheritance of that, we can see a much more complex set of potential nuclear relations emerging in Asia, obviously. There, as our minister has made clear, we're concerned that missile defence might be introduced and developed in ways that would provoke an arms race and visit on our new century a fresh nuclear menace that we don't need.

The Chair: I'm going to pass on to Mr. Dubé. We have a real problem, because it's now ten to ten. We have three people who want to ask questions and we only have ten minutes. We can go a bit over, but we can't go forever over. So I'm going to ask Mr. Westdal if he could tighten the answers up a bit, and we can tighten the questions up a bit.

You have to go to House duty, I understand, Mr. Obhrai. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé.

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Graham. Welcome, Mr. Westdal. As you mentioned, I had the good fortune to make your acquaintance three weeks ago. I'm replacing Ms. Lalonde this morning. She is the regular member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. As you know, I'm a member of the Sub-committee on Human Rights and International Development. However, I regret - and I say this to the Chairman, - that since our visit to Geneva, we have not met as a committee, despite the many human rights problems in the world. I'm not asking you to comment, though, on this state of affairs.

• 0950

You explained that your job wasn't easy. I understand that and I explained it again this morning. Perhaps you won't answer my question. Canada has a tendency to act as an adviser, to be a leader and to promote world issues. Unfortunately, it doesn't always practice what it preaches here at home, particularly when it comes to implementing recommendation number 8 contained in the report issued two years ago.

Consider the idea of burning mixed oxyde fuels known as MOX. The committee made a recommendation on this issue but - and I'm not blaming you - the government failed to follow through and decided to continue burning these fuels anyway. You probably cannot make recommendations. I'm not an expert, as I just admitted. My area of expertise is human rights. I'd like to ask you a naive question about the shield, one that I believe you will be able to answer.

Currently, the missile defence shield is a US initiative aimed at protecting the United States, and perhaps the entire North American hemisphere as well. Is it possible, however, to develop a shield capable of protecting all world nations? Isn't this one option that we should be exploring? If it's technically possible to protect the Americans, shouldn't it also be technically possible to protect everyone? I'd like to hear you views on the subject.

Regarding one last issue, you chaired a number of sessions on behalf of Canada. I only followed the work of the Human Rights Commission for a single day. A total of 53 countries were represented. I'm interested in your views, since you chaired the session. Do you think it's possible to be effective while at the same time chairing the sessions? The Chair must remain neutral, keep everyone calm and encourage closer ties. However, assuming this role can neutralize a person's effectiveness, that is it can make it difficult for that individual to exercise leadership or to promote a more pro-active position.

I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Thank you. With your permission, I'd like to answer these questions in English.

Mr. Antoine Dubé: Fine, translation isn't a problem here.

Mr. Chris Westdal: Good.

[English]

As to MOX, as you know, the government has authorized and some have commenced experiments and research to determine whether MOX fuel, which has its origins in Russian and Soviet weapons ultimately, can be used as a fuel in our reactors. I know this has been controversial in Canada, for a variety of reasons. I won't comment on those. I do, however, find some disproportionate reaction to the risks the transport of MOX involves, for example. I remember being struck by the image of worry about a small amount of material that routinely is transported elsewhere in the world going through territory that for decades has been overflown by B-52s full of a whole lot more dangerous material than was going by—that's a bit of a sad comment about relative dangers.

I don't think those are the right dangers to focus on here. The right dangers to focus on are the dangers posed by the residue of the Cold War arsenals, not only in Russia. The production of those arsenals left mind-numbing residues in such places as Hanford. Particularly in Russia, there's an enormous problem of dealing safely with that accumulating fissile material. Some say, ironically, that the safest place to store highly enriched uranium and plutonium is in nuclear warheads, where they are all cosy, rather than taking them apart and not having the means to very safely protect them. That's an enormous problem that costs billions to deal with. It's being dealt with under arrangements between the United States and Russia, to which we are contributing modestly. But one of the contributions is to help find out whether and how such material might be used as a fuel, in what settings, in what reactors, and whether it works or not.

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So I think, rather than focusing on the dangers of moving and experimenting with some MOX fuel, we must keep our mind on the far greater danger posed by that residue and how to deal with it.

On the question of missile defence, to quickly focus on the dimension you asked about, I think you put your finger on a key question. If you note the evolution of the missile defence proposals, the matter has moved from being NMD, national missile defence—whose nation, the United States—to being ballistic missile defence, which means all missile defence and includes theatre and regional and intercontinental, and so on. Bear in mind that someone's nation is someone else's theatre, and vice versa.

The question of what is protected against what is absolutely vital to the politics and the perceptions of national defence. If one is talking about protecting against an accident, everyone should want to be protected against an accident, and no one would want an accident visited upon anyone else. The moment you begin to talk about cooperation in missile defence, of course, you're always wondering, cooperation against what threat, coming from where? Obviously, everyone can't be protected against rogue states, because it's not designed to protect the rogue states against rogue states. But there are universal threats of accidental or unauthorized missile flight that could be protected against by a missile defence system that would, in that sense, be protecting everyone. You put your finger on one of the sensitive questions in the presentation of missile defence.

As to presiding over the CD in its current state, I'd just say that being obliged to be relatively neutral as the president of the CD was not much of a cost to pay, because the free rein we had to express Canadian views when we were not president we were unable to use to much good effect, because there wasn't a game being played. I think the analogy is useful that arms controllers and disarmers at the CD are no more able to get to work without an agreed work program than a ball team is able to play without an agreed schedule and without an organized league.

One example, however, we might touch on is that Canada has supported agreement on the negotiation of means to prevent the weaponization of outer space. At the same time, under our own steam and as president, we have supported a work program that includes dealing with the prevention of an arms race in outer space, rather than negotiating it. I suppose it's an example of how, as president, one is obliged to seek more forcefully a consensus, rather than to serve unshakeably one's own national positions.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

It's Mr. Paradis, and then Madame Marleau.

[Translation]

Mr. Denis Paradis (Brome—Missisquoi, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Getting back to the subject of the missile defence shield, this is something the Americans say very little about. We've yet to hear the specific details. The shield is part of a global defence system that the Americans are advocating. We've also heard that it will be many years before this defence system is operational, if the day ever comes to pass.

The US has also announced a reduction in its nuclear arsenal. A year or two ago, committee members traveled to Washington where they met with experts on this subject. A professor whose name I can't recall right now outlined for us his "no first use" theory which I found rather interesting. He claimed that this was merely one stage of the process. It doesn't mean that everything else is wiped off the map, but merely that this is a positive stage. He told me that even though nuclear weapons may exist, we could still adopt the "no first use" approach. Each state that is a party to this agreement would pledge not to be the first to push the button. It was an interesting theory.

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Is there room under the new system for the "no first use" approach? Is this even feasible? Can something be done to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation?

[English]

Mr. Chris Westdal: There's a lot of skepticism about no first use declarations. I think that needs to be said.

It's hard to imagine that if, God forbid, push came to shove... that's the wrong expression, but if you imagine that ghastly moment of the use of nuclear weapons, it's difficult to credit or imagine that it would be stopped. If someone came in and said, oh, but wait a minute, no, we promised we wouldn't use them first, that assurance is just not entirely credible.

The history of no first use declarations is fairly complex. The Chinese insist that they would not use nuclear weapons first. The Soviet Union insisted, and then the Russians, that they would not use nuclear weapons first, but that has now changed.

NATO and the United States have never said that they would not use nuclear weapons first, first, because they were consciously countering what they perceived to be superior conventional forces; and secondly—and this is a controversial field—because they want an element of ambiguity.

Ambiguity is quite discomforting in the mind of anyone who would use a weapon of mass destruction. We've worried about that ambiguity, because it can erase a line that we think is very important between nuclear weapons and other dreadful but much less menacing weapons—biological and chemical.

The Chair: So there's no ambiguity on Taiwan, but lots of ambiguity on when to use nuclear weapons. Is this the way we're going?

Mr. Chris Westdal: Yes, exactly. I would say there are different degrees of ambiguity in different cases.

But that's generally the attitude toward no first use declarations. Those are the reasons parties have adopted them and changed them over the years.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Marleau.

Ms. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.): I want to go back to what the real threat is right now. We can talk about all these issues in the future, but there's a major threat now.

You know and I know that it has a lot to do with rusting nuclear subs in the bottom of the sea, with stockpiles of all kinds of nuclear warheads unaccounted for, unprotected, that are out there since the break-up of the U.S.S.R. MOX is very small test right now that would deal with only aspect of that problem.

Is there any real work going on to address these serious threats of nuclear accidents? Nobody talks about these things. We talk about the future. Well, this is the future, and it's a lot closer to us and a lot more dangerous than any of the other perceived threats in the future.

Mr. Chris Westdal: I agree with you that those are among the clearest and the most present dangers of nuclear arsenals.

There is a lot going on. It's an enormous task, and if one tried to calculate what it would cost to clean up that entire residue, the sums are quite astronomical. But that said, there's much immediate, obvious, short-term work that needs to be done, and it is going on under the Nunn-Lugar funding, under the cooperative threat reduction initiative. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to try to secure and reinforce the safety arrangements in the storage and the control of that nuclear arsenal.

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We are contributing. Indeed, when I was in Ukraine three years ago, a Canadian led the Kiev science and technology centre. There's one in Kiev in Ukraine, and there's one in Moscow. Those are centres that are specifically established to hire Soviet weapons of mass destruction scientists. That's the criterion: you have to have been involved.

The explicit, open notion is that it would be good were current peaceful and hopefully commercially viable uses found for all that scientific genius rather than finding it employed elsewhere in the production of weapons of mass destruction.

So Canada is involved in that dimension. There are hundreds of millions of dollars spent, and more is required.

Ms. Diane Marleau: I know about that, but what exactly is happening, for instance, to counter the threat of these nuclear subs that are sitting at the bottom of the ocean? There are hundreds of them, and I'm not sure anything is being done for this. If there's an accident, it will affect us all.

I really believe we should be putting a lot more emphasis on the immediate right now and trying to get countries to spend the vast amounts that are necessary to counter this real threat that exists today. You and I both know there could be an accident any time. The cost of cleaning that up would be far greater than trying to get in there and preventing it.

I'm not sure there's enough discussion of this or enough consciousness of it for countries to deal with it together. We hear about MOX. That was a great thing. There's a lot of fear-mongering about things, but nobody talks about what we should really be afraid of, that is, all these arms, and also the fact that they're sold on the black market. These rogue states will get hold of some of these, because they're not accounted for. They're in countries where there is so much poverty that it is nothing for people to go and get them and sell them. Let's get real and deal with this real problem as well.

If you want to deal with future issues, that's okay, but as a world community, let's deal with the real, ever-present, very grave threat of nuclear accidents or nuclear incidents caused by the residue of these weapons that are all over in the former U.S.S.R. and are finding their way into certain hands that we wouldn't want them to find their way into.

Mr. Chris Westdal: I think you described the risks well. There is determined action underway on the fronts you describe, some of it we know about, some of it is between the armed forces of Russia and the United States.

I would only emphasize that such programs are very expensive. We had exposure to them or a flavour of them in the work on Chernobyl safety, for example, in which we took part through the G-8. One has to come to that table with some real resources if one expects any effective results.

Ms. Diane Marleau: Unfortunately, we're talking about the future and spending vast amounts of dollars, and we're not dealing with the present, where we do need to spend vast amounts of dollars. That's my point.

The Chair: Let me ask a specific question about that, because that's one thing that was puzzling us.

What is it, the Lugar bill...

Mr. Chris Westdal: It's Nunn-Lugar, two senators' names.

The Chair: That authorizes expenditures of money within the former Soviet Union itself to clean up and move them around.

When the committee was there, we heard about two aspects of that. One was the question of the cooperation of the Russian authorities themselves, who believed they were the ones who could best manage this process and didn't want somebody else coming in and telling them what to do.

We've just seen reports, for example, in the press, saying the same thing about tuberculosis—I don't know if you saw that on the weekend—saying we don't need the World Health Organization giving us $150 million to deal with tuberculosis in Russia; we'll deal with it ourselves.

So there's a Russian nationalist hesitancy, if you like, to receive the expertise and money from outside, on the one hand. And on the other hand, we're informed that maybe the Republicans in Congress are talking about restricting the amount of money that is being spent on that.

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Here we've got a group of people who are arguing in favour of NMD and willing to spend $60 billion on it, and they want to cut down the amount of money they're willing to spend on exactly what Madam Marleau has described as and what you said was the clear and present danger that's there. Is that true? Is our analysis of what's happening accurate, or is it an unfounded worry?

Mr. Chris Westdal: I can't speak for the attitudes in the American Congress that you describe. I'm not informed about moves to reduce that spending. Of course, the Nunn-Lugar moneys have to compete with all other proposals for public expenditure. Trying to get American political support for funding to Russia is difficult, when so much funding to Russia has been ineffective or found its way into the wrong hands. Of course there are some difficulties and complications in dealing with the Russians in this field. Their pride has been bruised by their recent history. Their military, like other militaries, are congenitally secretive and find it quite extraordinary to be sharing the closest secrets with the erstwhile rival, and so on. So it's natural that those arrangements don't just fall into place without effort.

But I think, all things considered, we should give great credit to Senator Nunn, Senator Lugar, and other American leaders in the administration and on the Hill who have been prepared, despite all the problems in resource flows to Russia, to sustain a quite significant budget meeting the dangers you described, doing it cooperatively for the common good. I think, with some historical perspective, we should be pleased that relations between Soviet forces and Russian forces and the Pentagon and its representatives should be so radically transformed as to put us in a position where we're worried about whether there are enough resources to deal with the dismantlement of these weapons. Those are the problems we'd prefer to be dealing with, rather than the problems that would come were we still in that impasse that was so terrifying and if those arsenals were not being taken down now.

The Chair: What is the dollar figure of the Canadian contribution to that process? If we're going to complain about the Americans not spending any money, what are we spending on that process?

Mr. Chris Westdal: I don't have those numbers to hand, and you would have to define that very carefully. I do know that in the general field of nuclear safety we are contributing tens of millions of dollars a year.

The Chair: In countries like Ukraine, the former Soviet Union—

Mr. Chris Westdal: The former Soviet Union. Those are contributions to Chernobyl safety, which has been very expensive, contributions to the science and technology employment program we've talked about. We have made contributions to cleanup. I remember that we financed a road to an environmental cleanup plant for chemical weapons, I think. We can give you more detail than I have.

The Chair: I wonder if you could let the committee have those figures. I think it would be helpful for us to understand that. In that context particularly, as we are presently writing a report on Central Asian republics in the caucuses, you might let us know specifically if any expenditures are being made in, particularly, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and those other countries—most especially Kazakhstan, which I understand was a vast repository of nuclear weapons and nuclear activity. We'd be interested to know if we're doing anything there.

We've gone well over time. I'm sorry. Mr. Martin came in late, but I think we should maybe break now, colleagues.

Mr. Westdal, I want to thank you very much. Obviously this is an extraordinarily important issue for global security, and also, I think, one of considerable interest to the Canadian public. We know that you personally do an incredible job for us. We want to thank you very much for that. Keep up the good work.

We're adjourned until three o'clock this afternoon, colleagues.