Justice committee  It's a great question. I'm glad to say that I don't think so. I don't think that safety or security is being cut significantly below where it was, but on the other hand, I think there are countries that are more reluctant to make new investments than they would have been because

Justice committee  That's a great question. I have a long article on that subject that appeared in the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science some years ago. It's not easy but unfortunately it's not as hard as we would like. Mother Nature was both kind and cruel to us in set

Justice committee  Unfortunately I don't think it's accurate. If you could tie it only to actors who had strong state support, I'd be a little less worried, because you can deter the state that is supporting many of those actors. With an actor like al Qaeda, deterrence is much more difficult becaus

Justice committee  In Canada, like the United States, many of these reactors used to use highly enriched uranium, and in many cases weapons-grade highly enriched uranium. Both of our countries are working to convert to low enriched uranium. I believe—I imagine Mr. Barber can correct me if I'm wrong

Justice committee  That's a great question, but I think we need to distinguish somewhat between two different and dangerous trades. One is the smuggling of materials that could be used directly to make a nuclear bomb, that is highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which so far—knock on wood—has most

Justice committee  I believe Canada already has, as you say, a good regime of safety and security rules and regulations to regulate its own use of nuclear energy and its exports of nuclear-related technologies. Now, that's not to say things couldn't be made better. Certainly, I'm not as familiar w

Justice committee  I believe it's a major threat to international security, which is why I've devoted a good chunk of my career over the last 20 years to working on this problem. I do think, however, that the probability is lower than it was, say, at the time of the September 11 attacks. Since th

Justice committee  I think the domestic steps, such as passing this legislation, are crucial to being able to build this global framework. The reality is that we won't get everybody participating in this global framework. You're not going to see North Korea ratifying these treaties any time soon.

Justice committee  Both pieces of legislation are intended to make sure that this nation's laws are consistent with the obligations in the convention to prohibit certain acts related to nuclear terrorism, and to impose penalties that are consistent with the magnitude of those crimes. Given the nu

Justice committee  Thank you very much. It's an honour to be here to talk about a topic that I think is extraordinarily important to the security of Canada, the United States, and the world. I agree with a great deal, essentially all, of what Mr. Barber had to say on these points. The potential c