Canada must join international call for nuclear ban

Trudeau should exhort U.S. to reduce arsenal, write M.V. Ramana and Lauren J. Borja.

On Sunday, Japanese-Canadian Setsuko Thurlow was recognized at the award ceremony for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. But rather than celebrating this momentous occasion, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dismissed the effort for which the prize is being awarded: the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Ban Treaty. The treaty bans the development, production, possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and was adopted by 122 countries at the United Nations this year.

The Nobel Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the group that advocated for the Ban Treaty. In turn, ICAN chose to have Thurlow, one of the last living survivors of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, receive the award along with its executive director.

Thurlow immigrated to Canada as an adult and has tirelessly advocated for the abolition of nuclear weapons. She was made a member of the Order of Canada in recognition of her work emphasizing the cataclysmic humanitarian consequences of war and the need for peace. Her speeches recounting the sheer horror of that fateful day in August 1945, when the people of Hiroshima were burnt, blasted and irradiated by the bomb dropped by the U.S., helped propel the campaign for the Ban Treaty.

One of those moving speeches was delivered at the United Nations earlier this year when the Ban Treaty was being negotiated. But there was no Canadian delegation present to hear it.

Canada’s absence was likely due to a note last year from the U.S. Mission to NATO with clear instructions: “The United States calls on all allies and partners to vote against negotiations on a nuclear weapons treaty ban, not to merely abstain. In addition, if negotiations do commence, we ask allies and partners to refrain from joining them.”

Canada’s government did refrain. When the Ban Treaty opened for signature at the United Nations in September, Canada wasn’t among the 53 nations that signed.

The Canadian government claims that the Ban Treaty was “certain to be ineffective” because of lack of participation by nuclear weapon states. Trudeau deemed the treaty “sort of useless.”

The government’s preferred disarmament strategy involves what’s sometimes called a step-by-step approach involving the negotiation and implementation of a series of arms control treaties.

There are two problems with this approach. First, the two main treaties that have been talked about — a ban on nuclear weapons explosions and a ban on the production of fissile material to make nuclear weapons — have been stalled since 1996.

The second problem with the step-by-step approach is that it allows the nuclear weapon states to establish the pace of disarmament.

In October, after the announcement about Thurlow and the peace prize, Trudeau told reporters: “Any time you’re going to talk about moving forward on a nuclear-free world, you have to focus on the countries that already have nuclear weapons and therefore look at reducing that amount.”

If this were indeed true, Canada should start calling upon the United States — its ally — to reduce its arsenal. At a time when there’s widespread concern that nuclear weapons might be used on the Korean Peninsula, it’s critical that we continue talking about the importance of a nuclear-free world.

Encouraging the U.S. might not be so palatable to the Trump administration as it embarks on upgrading its nuclear weapons at an estimated cost of $1.25 trillion.

If Trudeau doesn’t find either of these options appealing, the international community now offers him an alternative: join the vast majority of countries in banning nuclear weapons.

It’s critical that we continue talking about the importance of a nuclear-free world.