Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party to support this important piece of legislation.
By implementing the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty Canada will be furthering in an important way the goal of nuclear disarmament. It will constrain the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons, constituting an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in all its aspects.
Two weeks ago this House welcomed a true hero, the president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Mandela had just returned from New York where he spoke eloquently before the United Nations general assembly for the last time as president of South Africa. In that speech he strongly supported nuclear disarmament and he spoke against the alarming acceleration of poverty worldwide.
President Mandela noted that the nuclear weapons states have not yet made a clear commitment to eliminate the bomb. He added that his country, South Africa, and Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia and Sweden would be submitting a resolution to the assembly to this effect. At the United Nations he called on all members of the UN to seriously consider this important resolution and to give it their support.
While we welcome this legislation, I want to appeal to our government to heed the eloquent cry of Nelson Mandela and to join in this new agenda coalition seeking the elimination of these weapons of mass destruction.
It was on June 8 of this year that the foreign ministers of those eight countries President Mandela referred to issued a joint declaration. In that declaration they note that they considered the continued threat to humanity represented by the perspective of the indefinite possession of nuclear weapons by the nuclear weapon states, as well as by those three nuclear weapons capable states that have not yet acceded to the non-proliferation treaty, and the attendant possibility of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapon. They went on to note the seriousness of the recent nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan.
These countries said as well we can no longer remain complacent at the reluctance of the nuclear weapons states and the three nuclear weapons capable states to take that fundamental and requisite step, namely a clear commitment to the speedy, final and total elimination of their nuclear weapons and their nuclear weapons capability. We urge them to take that step now. They as well noted the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice in its 1996 advisory opinion that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control. That was the call of the foreign ministers of those eight countries, the so-called new agenda coalition.
It is clear that the Canadian people support Canada's playing a far more active role in this area as well.
An Angus Reid poll conducted in February this year revealed that 93% of Canadians support Canadian involvement in global negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons and a full 76% support a leadership role for Canada in such negotiations.
Canadians have been deeply troubled by a number of recent tests over the course of the last two or three years such as the resumption by the French government of nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Earlier this year my New Democrat and I voiced our deep concern at the resumption by India and Pakistan of the detonation of nuclear devices.
After those tests I would note that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the so-called doomsday clock five minutes closer to midnight. It now stands at nine minutes to midnight.
While we condemn those tests by India and Pakistan we welcome some of the recent statements made by their governments suggesting that they are prepared to consider signing this important comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty provided that the nuclear weapon states finally live up to their commitments as well to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.
While of course it is essential that we rid the world of any further nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons testing there is still a lot of work to be done. The costs of this have been incredible. It has been estimated that $8 trillion has been spent on nuclear weapons since 1945 while a large percentage of the world's population has gone without the most basic human needs being met, adequate food, shelter, health care and education. I note the most recent report of the United Nations development program which shows the gap between rich and poor still increasing.
The world's stockpile of nuclear weapons, estimated at 36,000 warheads, represents over 700 times the explosive power used in all the three major wars of this century which killed 44 million people.
It has been since the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the world has had to live with nuclear weapons. We survived the past 50 years fortunately without any further nuclear weapons exploding on innocent civilians. But the threat of nuclear annihilation lives on. Indeed there have been a number of studies indicating that the risk of some sort of accidental detonation is still far too great.
I mentioned the five nuclear weapons states, Russia, the U.S., France, China and the United Kingdom, and the three near nuclear states, Israel, India and Pakistan. I want to say a word in the context of Israel. I again appeal to our government to speak out against the shameful continued imprisonment of Mordechai Vanunu in Israel. Vanunu has been in jail for many years, most of that time in solitary confinement solely for courageously exposing the Israeli nuclear project at Dimona. I plead with our government to recognize that this is a profound injustice, that Vanunu should be freed and that our government should be speaking out and ending its silence on that.
At its peak in 1986, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world was about 70,000. Today it is about half that. South Africa has shown other nuclear weapons states that it is possible to have actually possessed these weapons and then to eliminate their arsenal.
There are currently five major international nuclear weapons free zones, including all the countries in the southern hemisphere. The non-proliferation treaty, first signed in 1968, has been an important step forward and I acknowledge that Canada played a leadership role in the 1995 extension of this treaty.
In that treaty the nuclear weapons states in article VI have made it very clear. They have signed on to this commitment. They said each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
That is the commitment nuclear weapons states have made but that is not the commitment they have honoured, and it is long overdue for this hypocrisy to end.
I think many of us understand the point that both India and Pakistan have made in saying to the five nuclear weapon states “Don't lecture us about our testing when you yourselves possess these weapons and you are not prepared to honour the treaty in establishing timetables and goals for the elimination of your own weapons”.
I and my colleagues in the New Democratic Party today again call on the nuclear weapon states to honour that commitment in article VI, to make an unequivocal commitment to the elimination of their respective nuclear weapons and without delay to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations that will lead to the elimination of these weapons.
My colleagues who spoke before me mentioned the work of the foreign affairs committee in looking at the important issue of the abolition of nuclear weapons. I am pleased to be a member of that committee and to work with my colleagues on that. We in that committee have heard from a broad cross-section of interested individuals and organizations.
I want to acknowledge some of the many individuals and groups who have been working with dedication for many years on this important issue: Ernie Regher and Bill Robinson of Project Ploughshares; the newly appointed senator from Alberta, Doug Roche, a veritable one man disarmament machine who has done an extraordinary job in this area; a broad cross-section of Canadian churches; Peter Coombes, Gillian Skeet and many others of End the Arms Race in British Columbia; the many organizations of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Debbie Grisdale of the Physicians for Global Survival; Veterans Against Nuclear Arms; Trina Booth of the Canadian Peace Alliance; the United Nations Association in Canada; the World Federalists of Canada; Pugwash; the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout; and Irene and Norm Abbey of the Nanoose Conversion Campaign. These are some of the many people and organizations that have been working with such dedication and conviction over the years.
There are many individuals. In the early sixties my mother was a member of the Voice of Women. They were signing petitions and demonstrating outside shopping centres for an end to Strontium 90 in our milk. These are the people who have laid the groundwork for where we are today.
I mention in particular the Canadian church leaders' statement. Its representatives appeared before the foreign affairs committee earlier this year. They spoke very eloquently and very powerfully about the extraordinary affront to humanity for nuclear weapon states and their allies, including Canada, to persist in claiming that nuclear weapons are required for their security. The church leaders said “The spiritual, human and ecological holocaust of a nuclear attack can be prevented only by the abolition of nuclear weapons. It is our common duty to pursue that goal as an urgent and top priority”. We in the New Democratic Party join our voices with those church leaders in appealing to our government and all governments to honour that commitment.
Although Canada does not have nuclear weapons and officially opposes nuclear proliferation and supports disarmament, our hands are not entirely clean on this issue. We provide airspace and low level flight ranges for nuclear bomber training. We host visits by nuclear powered and potentially nuclear armed submarines. Politically and diplomatically, the Liberal government supports U.S. and NATO nuclear policies which shamefully include the option of the first use of nuclear weapons.
We as New Democrats believe that Canada can and must do much more to further the nuclear disarmament agenda. I will suggest some of the things we could be doing.
Canada could join the new agenda coalition of middle power states as they call on nuclear weapon states to make an unequivocal commitment to enter into and conclude negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Canada must support immediate steps to de-alert the nuclear arsenals of all nuclear states, including the elimination of hair trigger nuclear postures and the removal of warheads from their delivery systems.
Canada must push within NATO for a comprehensive and long overdue review of NATO's nuclear doctrine, for NATO to adopt a no first use policy, and to support the elimination of forward deployed nuclear weapons. We should not be a member of a military alliance that contemplates the use of these terrible weapons.
These changes I have spoken of should be reflected in NATO's strategic concept document which is due in April next year.
Canada should vote at the United Nations in favour of multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention. This fall a resolution will once again be before the general assembly. Last year Canada voted against that resolution. I want to appeal to our government to reconsider and support that resolution this year when it comes before the general assembly and indeed show some leadership and co-sponsor that important resolution.
We should stop Candu reactor sales to countries with poor human rights records, like China and Turkey, and phase out the nuclear power industry in Canada generally. We should become a nuclear free zone. The Liberal government should certainly give notice of termination of the agreement between Canada and the United States allowing a torpedo testing range at Nanoose Bay in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia.
We should not be involved in any way in importing MOX fuel for conversion at Canadian facilities.
Our government has shown leadership on land mines. We could show the same kind of leadership working with civil society to mobilize public opinion on this issue.
Before closing I want to make a couple of additional points. I want to note the outstanding work of my colleagues on this issue.
My colleague the member for Vancouver East has participated in a couple of citizens weapons inspection teams, the American nuclear submarine test facilities in Bangor, Washington, as well as the Electric Boat Corporations, one of areas that manufactures the Trident in Groton, Connecticut. She has been drawing to the attention of the global community the complicity of the United States in continuing to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.
My colleague the member for Winnipeg—Transcona has made many powerful speeches over the years on the scourge of nuclear weapons and the need to abolish them.
Nuclear weapons have been with us since the 1940s. However, as we enter the new millennium it is time to end this nuclear madness and set a new course toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. We owe it to future generations, to our children and to our children's children to abolish all nuclear weapons from this earth.
The children of today are concerned. When I speak in elementary schools, one of the favourite books I like to read from is Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes . It is the tragic story of a young Japanese girl who was a victim of radiation sickness and who died as a result of that.
The children I speak to ask me why we allow this madness to occur and what are we doing to make sure it will never happen again. And they are right. That is the political leadership we are calling for now.
I would like to refer to a letter the foreign affairs committee received from retired United States General Lee Butler. He was one of those who were in the very leadership of the United States military role in nuclear weapons. This is what he said in his letter to the foreign affairs committee:
It is truly a sad commentary on the human condition that we are incapable of letting go the most bizarre and terrifying security construct ever conceived by the mind of man.
The most difficult truth I had to confront in my own reassessment of nuclear weapons was that for most of my career I had failed to grasp the moral context of these hideously destructive devices. It came crashing home the day I assumed responsibility for the U.S. nuclear war plan and confronted the consequences of targeting over 10,000 weapons on the Soviet Union. That is when I came to fully appreciate the brutal honesty of Joseph Stalin's comment on the modern age: “The death of a single individual is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic”.
He closed by saying:
My country is badly in need of a new moral compass on this issue. We have committed the fatal sin in public policy making of becoming cynical and arrogant with respect to decisions affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. We have trivialized the likelihood that deterrence might fail, thus providing easy moral cover for ignoring the consequences. We have learned to live with a weapon that numbs our conscience and diminishes our humanity. We need to hear voices of reason, urging us to a higher standard of rectitude and global leadership. We await your call.
Canada, our government, must respond to that call by doing everything in our power to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons.