Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for the great question and the chance to lay out the pragmatic approach to which she referred that Canada has taken to achieve worldwide nuclear disarmament in co-operation with our friends and allies, both those who have nuclear weapon systems and those who do not.
Our government believes that in order to convince nuclear powers to get rid of their weapons we must take this step-by-step approach. We are leading on a UN resolution that is doing just that, bringing nuclear powers to the table and working gradually toward disarmament. Not only do we lead through the UN system to make sure we advance toward this goal, we are also taking concrete actions. For example, Global Affairs has a program with respect to the mass destruction non-proliferation treaty with a view to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of terrorists. This program is called, not surprisingly, the weapons of mass destruction threat reduction program, and receives funding of $73 million per year.
We also support Norway's initiative to create a group of government experts on nuclear disarmament verification, something that is needed. These stations, which I referred to earlier with respect to monitoring, need support, sustenance, networking, and cannot be stand-alone. Without this weapons verification system ability to track explosives, very few of the nuclear states will disarm.
As well, in 2016, for the first time ever, Canada rallied 159 states to support and pass the resolution that my hon. colleague referred to, the fissile material cut-off treaty. With the support of nuclear and non-nuclear countries, this was a first and we chaired it.