Evidence of meeting #71 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Andrea Charron  Assistant Professor, Political Science, Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Michael Byers  Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Peggy Mason  President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs

4:55 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Political Science, Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual

Dr. Andrea Charron

I think that's right. If we don't have the capabilities to contribute, then.... It used to be said of Canada that we are at the NATO dinner table but when the cheque comes Canada runs away. We want to make sure that's not us.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr

Thank you for that.

The last question goes to Mr. Garrison.

4:55 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to Ambassador Mason on this question of how Canada might be active within NATO on nuclear disarmament. The statement—I always forget the name of it, but I think it was the defence and deterrence policy review of NATO in 2012—contained language that one of NATO's goals was “to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons”. That was restated at the Warsaw summit in 2016.

Could you give us some indication of what NATO might mean by that statement, “to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons”?

4:55 p.m.

President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs

Peggy Mason

Thank you very much for the question. It's actually very hard to know. I mean, NATO says that, just like NATO said, in the September 20 document I talked about, that the NPT is the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation and disarmament architecture. Of course, that NPT has the obligation on all parties to the NPT to engage in good faith negotiations toward nuclear disarmament, but NATO is manifestly not doing that.

The point I'm trying to make is that NATO is actually going in the wrong direction with this very alarming modernization process that is going to put new tactical nuclear weapons into NATO non-nuclear-weapon state countries. This pledge to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons stands there as a kind of formal statement, but NATO is manifestly not doing that, I would argue. It very much needs to do that.

Actually, I think this step of changing its nuclear posture from a flexible response to a very clear declaration of no first use—the argument being that the only role that NATO sees for its nuclear weapons is to deter their use by anyone—is an easy step for NATO to take, frankly, and yet it would be an extraordinarily powerful message that NATO really was committed, ultimately, to getting from here to there, and therefore recognized, of course, that so long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, they have to be deterred, but there should be no other role, and therefore NATO is going to take that first step in that direction.

5 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

You mentioned Norway's NATO footnotes. Was that actually by them formally to the treaty?

5 p.m.

President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs

Peggy Mason

It's not added to the treaty, because of course NATO's nuclear posture is not part of the treaty. It's a policy. It's updated, reviewed, and changes are made quite regularly. There's a long history of footnotes to various aspects of the policy. It's not necessarily just the nuclear policy but when countries have disagreements about particular elements. It just reinforces the point that this is a policy and not a treaty obligation, and therefore this step can be taken, although there would of course have to be agreement of....

The real point of the footnote is that individual countries can absent themselves from particular aspects of the policy. The most famous aspect of that is France staying outside of the nuclear planning group. So although it works by consensus, when it's making positive statements, there is this very interesting mechanism to allow for differences of view on specific aspects of the policy. That gives Canada and others who want to push, who want to get a dialogue going, room to manoeuvre. It's not an “all or nothing”. You just don't say the policy has to change tomorrow. You can say, no, we disagree with this, we're taking this step now. Hopefully, this will engage a dialogue with others as to further steps we can take.

5 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Has Canada ever used the footnote—

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr

I'm sorry, that's all the time we have.

Thank you to the three of you for coming. I'm sure we'll see you again. We appreciate your time.

I remind members that we have votes shortly, so we'll see you back over in the House.

The meeting is adjourned.