Abstract
This chapter examines Canada’s lost opportunities for leadership in arms control and nuclear non-proliferation. Canada’s decades-long record for promoting non-proliferation norms ranges from active support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that became international law in 1970 to former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s peace initiative in 1983, through to Canada’s influential push leading to the NATO nuclear policy review in 2000 and the 2005 all-party resolution in Canadian Parliament on prohibition of nuclear weapons. Why Canada chose not to champion the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, instead voting against the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations to negotiate the treaty and falling in line with the US-led NATO boycott of negotiations, is examined. The authors conclude that Canadian civil society leadership continues to be essential to a return by the Canadian Government to independent thinking and leadership on nuclear disarmament.
Hon. Marilou McPhedran, human rights lawyer, professor and activist, independent senator for Manitoba appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016; appointed to the Order of Canada for her leadership on sex equality amendments to the Constitution of Canada; co-founder of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF); Founding Principal of the University of Winnipeg Global College (2008–2012); Founding board member of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders.
David Hebb, Parliament Research Assistant to Senator McPhedran, LLM Candidate at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law.
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- 1.
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) http://www.undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8.
- 2.
Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1 July 1968), 729 UNTS 161.
- 3.
Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction (18 September 1997), 2056 UNTS 211. See Georghiades 1998.
- 4.
International Committee of the Red Cross and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2017.
- 5.
Donaghy 2007, 38.
- 6.
Meyer 2016, 13.
- 7.
Meyer 2016, 17.
- 8.
Barrett 1988, 82.
- 9.
Donaghy 2007, 38.
- 10.
Donaghy 2007, 40.
- 11.
Donaghy 2007, 41.
- 12.
Operation Dismantle v The Queen [1985] 1 SCR 441.
- 13.
Thompson 2009, 1120.
- 14.
Trudeau 1993, 336.
- 15.
Thompson 2009, 1124.
- 16.
Trudeau 1993, 340.
- 17.
Young 1994.
- 18.
Trudeau 1993, 338.
- 19.
McQuaig 2017.
- 20.
Hiliker et al. 2017, 434.
- 21.
Trudeau 1993, 341.
- 22.
Toss 1995.
- 23.
Simpson and Howlett 1994, 54.
- 24.
Simpson and Howlett 1994, 48.
- 25.
Rauf and Charnetski 1994, 109.
- 26.
Rauf and Johnson 1995, 33.
- 27.
Rauf and Johnson 1995, 33.
- 28.
Essis 2005, 516.
- 29.
- 30.
Welsh 1995, 3.
- 31.
Welsh 1995, 4.
- 32.
Craig 2007, 46.
- 33.
Rauf and Johnson 1995, 39.
- 34.
Salot 1999.
- 35.
Recommendation three and fifteen of the Report specifically suggest working together with NATO and Canada’s other allies to further nuclear disarmament. See House of Commons 1998.
- 36.
Mendelsohn 1999, 1.
- 37.
Trickey 1999.
- 38.
Simpson 2004, 2.
- 39.
Simpson 2004, 2.
- 40.
NATO 2000.
- 41.
NATO 2000, 9.
- 42.
NATO 2000, 17.
- 43.
Treaty on Open Skies (24 March 1992), http://www.osce.org/library/14127. For further discussion on the Open Skies treaty, see Simonet 2011.
- 44.
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (19 November 1990), adapted on 19 November 1999, http://www.osce.org/library/14087, http://www.policyalmanac.org/world/archive/usnato_cfe.shtml. For further discussion on the CFE, see Hogg 2004.
- 45.
See Canada 2016.
- 46.
See United Nations 2010, 13.
- 47.
See Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs Republic of Austria 2014.
- 48.
See United Nations 2010.
- 49.
United Nations 2016a, para 66.
- 50.
United Nations 2016a, para 34.
- 51.
United Nations 2016a, para 66.
- 52.
United Nations 2016a, para 67.
- 53.
United Nations 2016b, 3.
- 54.
Nobel Media 2017.
- 55.
ICANW 2017b.
- 56.
ICANW 2017a.
- 57.
Article 2 TPNW.
- 58.
Articles 3 and 4 TPNW.
- 59.
Article 7 TPNW.
- 60.
Article 6 TPNW.
- 61.
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, adopted by General Assembly Resolution 50/245 (10 September 1996), 35 ILM 1439, see SC Res 2310 (2016).
- 62.
Article 1(a) TPNW.
- 63.
ICANW 2017c.
- 64.
ICANW 2017c.
- 65.
See Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (18 September 1997), https://www.apminebanconvention.org/.
- 66.
Blanchfield 2017b.
- 67.
See Report of the Group of Governmental Experts 2015.
- 68.
Annex II, NPT.
- 69.
Meyer 2016, 5.
- 70.
See Report of the Group of Governmental Experts 2015.
- 71.
See Canada 2018.
- 72.
Panda 2017.
- 73.
Regehr 2016, 1.
- 74.
Id., 2.
- 75.
NATO 2016.
- 76.
United States Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 2016.
- 77.
Id., 1-1.
- 78.
Id., 2-1.
- 79.
Joyner 2017.
- 80.
Ceasefire 2017.
- 81.
Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention 2017.
- 82.
Id.
- 83.
See CNANW 2017.
- 84.
In keeping with the precedent of how Rotary first became international with the charter of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on 13 April 1912, the founder of Rotary World Peace Partners, Mr. David G. Newman Q.C., described: ‘an organic building of momentum in Manitoba with a focus on young people to lead us…and call on our government to sign the ban treaty’. Notes from an address to members of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Winnipeg, Manitoba by David G. Newman, 5 July 2018.
- 85.
Roche 2001.
- 86.
Shirobokova 2017.
- 87.
Mason 2017.
- 88.
- 89.
Blanchfield 2017a.
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McPhedran, M., Hebb, D. (2019). Why Was Canada Not in the Room for the Nuclear Ban Treaty?. In: Black-Branch, J., Fleck, D. (eds) Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law - Volume IV. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-267-5_16
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