Evidence of meeting #59 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was international.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Shawn Barber  Acting Director General, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Matthew Bunn  Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Terry Wood  Senior Co-ordinator, International Nuclear Cooperation, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Graeme Hamilton  Senior Program Manager / Deputy Director, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Greg Koster  Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Carole Morency  Acting Director General and Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

Our next questioner, from the Conservative Party, is Mr. Albas.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank all of our guests who are here today as witnesses. Your testimony and your experience and expertise are most welcome.

Professor, I'm going to pick up from my colleague, MP Findlay, in regard to some of the comments you made, both in previous testimony to the Senate and also in some of your academic work.

Last Monday we heard the case, Professor, of Mahmoud Yadegari, who was the first person in Canada convicted of supplying nuclear equipment to Iran. In the six months leading up to his April 2009 arrest, Mr. Yadegari had contacted 118 companies across North America and sent more than 2,000 e-mails to suppliers, in the hopes of getting his hands on parts used in the enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel.

Professor, you referenced your 2011 report, “The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment of Nuclear Terrorism”, and I do appreciate your wanting to pass that on for the committee's consideration. In that report, Professor, I'm going to quote from page 44, where you say:

...there is some evidence that Teheran has been secretly acquiring technologies and materials important in the production of nuclear weapons on the black market. This and other evidence, such as the behavior of the Iranian leadership, strongly suggests that Iran aspires to eventually become a full-fledged nuclear power—or to have the option to build nuclear weapons at any time of its choosing.

Professor, do you think that Bill S-9 will facilitate international cooperation and make it more difficult for rogue states and terrorist groups to illegally obtain such nuclear materials?

4:10 p.m.

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Prof. Matthew Bunn

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 mostly been not only a not-organized crime but what I like to call a comically disorganized crime. It's mostly sort of part-time hustlers and has been rare and not an organized operation.

Then the different situation is these technology supply networks that are mostly run by states, although one of the odd things about the A.Q. Khan network was, rather than it being driven by the demand of a state, it was driven in part by the available supply from the network looking for customers. These are sophisticated operations dealing with companies with sensitive technologies, well-to-do engineers. They are sophisticated in the use of front companies and various other means of hiding what they're doing. But they are really about acquiring the technology to make this kind of material, and then to make a weapon from it, rather than acquiring the highly enriched uranium, which is really more of the terrorist problem. Technology is really more of the state problem. I think it's implausible that terrorists, even if they could get relevant technologies, would be able to enrich uranium or produce plutonium on their own.

So I would argue that Bill S-9 would help us with the terrorist problem, in part because it makes illegal and imposes these very substantial penalties on acts such as smuggling or unauthorized possession of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. I think there are other things we need to do that will help us with the technology problem, including taking action, as Canada did, to arrest these kinds of players who are trying to get these kinds of technologies.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC

I do appreciate your articulating the difference between the two. When we had representatives from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission—they testified before the committee as well—all affirmed that Canada operates under a world-class nuclear safety and security regime.

Now the amendments to the Criminal Code in Bill S-9 reflect obligations imposed under many of these agreements. We've already mentioned the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.

My question, Professor, is this. Once Bill S-9 is enacted, Canada would be in a position to ratify these conventions. Do you think the enactment of domestic legislation to implement Canada's obligations would be effective in further establishing that safe network, that technology supply network, as well as our own state use of nuclear technology?

4:10 p.m.

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Prof. Matthew Bunn

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 with Canada's export control laws as I am with my own country's. My own country's could definitely use some improvement in a variety of ways. In fact, some colleagues of mine and I are organizing a major international meeting in a couple of months to talk about better ways to stop this kind of black market technology trafficking.

But I think what Bill S-9 would do is allow Canada to enhance further its leadership role in this international effort to get these treaties ratified across the world and in force. The International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism already has enough parties to enter into force. Obviously, it's not in force for countries that haven't ratified, like Canada and the United States. But the amendment hasn't even entered into force yet, and that was the goal at Seoul: to get enough countries to ratify to get it into force by the time of the next Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands. I think that's going to be difficult, but we've got a shot to do it, and it would be impossible if Canada and the United States don't ratify.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Thank you, Professor.

And thank you, Mr. Albas.

Our next questioner, from the New Democratic Party, is Mr. Marston.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor, it's great to have you here, particularly in light of your centre's study and the assessment of the risk factor.

In your study you talked about the plausibility of a technically sophisticated group being able to make, deliver, and detonate a nuclear bomb if it had the right materials. I come from Hamilton. We have McMaster University with its own reactor. Are those reactors, in your view—I'm sure you have them in the U.S. as well—sufficiently safe, and are the materials in them weapons grade?

4:15 p.m.

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Prof. Matthew Bunn

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—that McMaster has in fact already converted to this and is not using highly enriched uranium. However, down the street from me, at MIT, for example, our colleagues there have 12.5 kilos of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium in the core of their research reactor.

Unfortunately, you can imagine that a little research reactor, with not very much revenue at a university, is not the kind of place where you're going to have the kind of armed protection you would imagine would be suitable for the kind of material you can use to make a nuclear bomb. That's one of the reasons I've been one of the strongest advocates pushing for eliminating the civil use of highly enriched uranium.

The United States is now on record saying we as a government want to eliminate completely all civil uses of highly enriched uranium. They're not needed anymore and they pose a security risk. I would love it if Canada, in its statement for December 2013 about minimizing the use of highly enriched uranium, would join us in that goal. I think it's the right goal of complete elimination from the civil sector.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thank you.

Mr. Barber, as I'm sure you're aware, we've recently had a report in the Ottawa Citizen regarding the transfer of bomb-grade liquefied uranium. Obviously that's raised some concerns, as it will any time there's a story of that nature out there.

I understand that is part of the program we're talking about here, where we're transferring back to the U.S. the weapons grade. Would you like to address the concerns we're hearing from our public in regard to the transportation, the security level of the products being transferred, and that type of thing? I'm sure there are many Canadians watching this particular committee today.

4:15 p.m.

Acting Director General, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Shawn Barber

Yes, thank you, Mr. Marston. That is an excellent question, but probably more appropriately put to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

However, I will say this. This is part of a worldwide effort to repatriate to countries of origin highly enriched fissile material so this material can be down-blended, it can be reprocessed, it can be done away with.

Professor Bunn has correctly pointed out the critical issue here for us are the stocks of fissile material. We need to ensure that terrorist organizations and terrorists are not able to get enough of this material to create a weapon that will do calamitous things in our major urban areas.

Are there concerns? I understand the concern. We understand the concerns. As a citizen, I would have the same concern.

Other countries are doing this. In the last year we have helped Mexico to repatriate highly enriched uranium from a research reactor in Mexico City back to the United States. We are assisting Vietnam to repatriate highly enriched uranium from a research reactor back to Russia.

At Chalk River there is this material. It costs the Canadian taxpayer a lot of money to keep it there. We don't have the technology to reprocess it in place at the moment. That technology and the facility exist in Savannah, Georgia. As part of our Nuclear Security Summit obligations, our Prime Minister undertook to return this material, as other countries are doing around the world, as in fact many other countries are doing around the world.

The modalities for doing that, how it gets from Chalk River to Savannah, Georgia, is not an issue that's our responsibility, but it certainly raises citizens' issues. That's an issue for CNSC, Transport Canada, and ultimately—

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

I don't think we'd be appropriately talking about how the methodology of the transfer would take place.

Do I have any more time?

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Not really, no.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Ah, that's too bad.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thank you very much, Professor.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Our next questioner is from the Conservative Party, Mr. Armstrong.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Dr. Bunn, for being here. I hope you made it through last week's snowstorm unscathed. I'm from Nova Scotia myself. You handed it off to us. We really appreciate that. Again, welcome.

It says on page 18 of your 2011 report entitled “The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism“, and I think you presented some of that today:

Counting assembled nuclear weapons is far easier than accounting for nuclear material in bulk form. Some weapons-usable nuclear material (particularly in the civilian sector) does not have the same level of security that nuclear weapons have. As a result, terrorists’ best chance of achieving a WMD capability may be a long-term effort to construct an IND with weapons-usable material stolen or purchased on the nuclear black market.

How easy is it to construct a nuclear bomb using stolen or black market nuclear material, which can be purchased throughout the world really?

4:20 p.m.

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Prof. Matthew Bunn

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 setting the laws of physics; kind in the sense that highly enriched uranium and plutonium don't exist in nature and are quite difficult to make, I think well beyond the plausible capabilities of any plausible terrorist group. In fact, about 90-plus per cent of the work and the money in the Manhattan project went to making the nuclear material rather than to designing and fabricating the bomb.

So as I mentioned, repeated government studies of this question not only in the United States but in several other countries have concluded it is plausible that a terrorist group could make not a safe high-yield efficient bomb that a state would want to have in its arsenal, but a crude unsafe weapon of the kind you might put in the back of a pickup truck or a large van or something of that kind.

Such a thing would be unsafe. It probably wouldn't have the kind of yields you'd like to have, but it could be a devastating terrorist blow. It would take terrorism to a whole new level. It would take a well-organized terrorist group able to maintain a focused project over a substantial period of time. It would take some knowledge of physics, considerable knowledge of explosives, some ability to machine material.

There are certain scenarios whereby you might be able to sidestep some of those requirements that I won't talk about in this unclassified setting, but I will say that in the United States there are certain facilities where the security rules require that they prevent the terrorists from even getting to the material because of concern they might be able to set off an explosion while they are still in the building. So it's a serious concern if a sophisticated and well-organized group gets this material.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS

It sounds as if there would almost have to be some sort of state actor behind whatever organization or some very advanced, well-financed group. Is that accurate?

4:20 p.m.

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Prof. Matthew Bunn

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 because they don't have a return address you can attack that they really want to defend in the same way. That is not to say that deterrence is irrelevant. I think a variety of things like that are still relevant in al Qaeda's case, but are different than they are in the case of state-supported groups.

Al Qaeda's effort in particular was more significant than a lot of people realized. They made repeated attempts to get stolen nuclear material and recruit people with nuclear weapon expertise. They got to the point shortly before the 9/11 attacks of carrying out tests of conventional explosives for their nuclear weapon program in the desert in Afghanistan. The details are still classified, but I was surprised in an unpleasant way when I learned about them, because they're more sensible approaches than I would have expected for terrorists to take in a nuclear program.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.

Our final questioner for this hour is Mr. Jacob, from the New Democratic Party.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us.

Thank you, Professor Bunn.

My first question is for you, Mr. Barber. Regarding nuclear security, do the countries of the former Soviet Union pose any particular challenges to the country's security?

February 13th, 2013 / 4:25 p.m.

Acting Director General, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Shawn Barber

I think the work that we have done through the global partnership program in Canada, particularly in Russia but also in Ukraine, has really helped to address the sorry state of security that we found there 10 to 12 years ago, which Professor Bunn talked about earlier.

In the efforts of the United States, the Russians themselves, and Canada, Germany, and France, we've together spent literally billions of dollars to address that problem in the past 10 years. Much of the work that we did in Russia was under the leadership of my colleague, Mr. Hamilton. I'd like him to give you a few examples of the kind of work we've done.

We've made a lot of progress and come a long way. There's still work to be done, but I think we can be proud of what we've done there.

4:25 p.m.

Graeme Hamilton Senior Program Manager / Deputy Director, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Thanks, Shawn, and thank you for the question.

Under the global partnership program, we've been working cooperatively with Russia over the past 10 years. This work has allowed us to provide significant financial and technical support to upgrade the physical protection systems at 10 Russian facilities housing weapons-usable nuclear material.

Our objective here was to bring these facilities up to the international standards and norms as indicated by the IAEA in its various standards documents.

For the most part, these upgrades included the bricks and mortar type of work, such as replacing aging wooden fences topped with rusty barbed wire with modern metal fences equipped with appropriate detection and monitoring systems, as well as providing sustainability assistance through the provision of spare parts and training.

As Professor Bunn described in his opening statement, 10 to 12 years ago a number of facilities in Russia were literally the equivalent of storing usable nuclear material in a gymnasium setting, sort of in a locker. Through our engagement in the global partnership program, we saw very similar examples, and we've worked over the past 10 years on upgrading those.

We've also worked on the recovery of radiological sources across Russia's vast northern and far eastern coastline as well. We worked cooperatively with Norway, the IAEA, and the U.S. in efforts to secure radiological sources that were being used in navigational beacons in the north, replacing them with solar-powered equivalents and taking those dangerous radiological materials and storing them in a secure facility in Russia.

4:25 p.m.

Acting Director General, Global Partnership Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Shawn Barber

To encapsulate that and answer your point specifically, we are secure. Canadians are more secure today as a result of the work we've been doing with the U.S., Germany, Norway, and other countries, including Russia. We're much more secure today than we were 10 years ago, precisely because of the kind of work we've been doing. The state we find ourselves in now with respect to nuclear security in Russia is far different from what it was 10 years ago.

Are there still problems there? There certainly are, and the Russians realize it themselves, but we are far better off and far more secure as Canadians because of the work that's happened over the last 10 years.