The prospect of renewed nuclear weapon stockpiling and global instability are spurring some countries to look more closely at nuclear protections — but Canada shouldn’t be amongst those, the defence minister and multiple experts say.
Questions on nuclear proliferation and deterrence have increased amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland and NATO, in addition to the approaching expiry this week of the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia.
Retired general Wayne Eyre, the previous chief of the defence staff, told an event in Ottawa on Monday that Canada shouldn’t altogether rule out acquiring its own nuclear weapons, based on reports from the Globe and Mail and La Presse.
Asked about those comments while heading into a cupboard meeting Tuesday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Canada has “absolutely no intention” of doing so.
“Canada is a signatory to international treaties which preclude us, primary, and Canada has been a non-nuclear-proliferation state for a very long time,” McGuinty told reporters.
“We’re going to proceed to construct conventional weapons. We’re going to proceed to re-arm. We’re going to proceed to reinvest. We’re going to proceed to rebuild our Canadian Armed Forces and we’re doing that.”
He said that work, with a specific deal with Arctic security, will “absolutely” ensure Canada’s military can operate independently from the U.S. even without its own nuclear deterrent.
The reports quoted Eyre as saying that Canada may never have true strategic independence without nuclear weapons, but adding that’s not something the country should pursue in the intervening time.
The discussion on the Rideau Club in Ottawa where Eyre made the comments, which focused on Canadian sovereignty and the boundaries of the country’s military autonomy, appear to not have been publicly broadcast.
Other experts caution that nuclear proliferation generally, and the thought of a Canadian nuclear arsenal specifically, mustn’t be pursued further.
“Nuclear weapons are usually not the solution to cope with growing uncertainty and danger all over the world,” said John Erath, senior policy director on the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C.
“It’s not idea … and so they contribute to the problem way more readily than they will resolve it.”
Alexander Lanoszka, an associate professor of political science on the University of Waterloo who studies international security, said the problem is just not whether Canada has the scientific or resource capability to develop a nuclear weapon, but fairly, “What are the strategic purposes, and what can be the strategic costs related to doing so?”
“Frankly, regardless that there’s plenty of concern about Russian adventurism, Chinese assertiveness, and whatever america is doing as of late, the Canadian government has very, little or no reason to go about such a costly endeavour as nuclear proliferation itself,” he said.
European nations have long relied heavily on america, including its large nuclear arsenal, for his or her defence and to discourage possible land grabs from Russia.
Canada is not any different, with the added value of being a geographic neighbour to the world’s second-largest nuclear warhead stockpile, just barely behind Russia.
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Nevertheless, Trump has demanded that NATO allies step up their military spending and tackle more of the collective defence burden — even threatening to not come to the help of people who don’t spend enough.
Trump’s recent push to accumulate Greenland from Denmark, which he has since backed down from, has only further rattled the NATO alliance.
France and the UK, the one two European nations with nuclear weapons, signed a declaration last summer for closer nuclear co-operation.
That got here just months after French President Emmanuel Macron said he was opening a “strategic debate” over making a shared European nuclear umbrella in an effort to reduce reliance on U.S. nuclear assets inside the continent.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last week that those talks had begun and that Germany was involved. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made similar comments last month.
Like Sweden and Germany, Canada is a non-nuclear state and a signatory to the international treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The agreement bars signatories without nuclear arms from acquiring or producing them.
Commonly often called the NPT, the treaty serves as the muse for the worldwide disarmament movement. Canada has strongly supported the treaty because it got here into force in 1970.
Nevertheless, the treaty doesn’t explicitly forbid the five nuclear power signatories — the U.S., Russia, China, France and Germany — from acquiring more weapons. It only urges them to barter an eventual global disarmament, with no set timeline to achieve this.
Erath noted the treaty has been successful overall, reducing the worldwide nuclear stockpile from 70,000 at the top of the Cold War to around 12,000 today, a drop of over 80 per cent.
“The last 20 per cent are proving very difficult to get at,” he said — and now some countries are pushing to construct more.
U.S. intelligence says China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and is on target to surpass 1,000 by 2030.
Trump, while announcing the U.S. would start testing its nuclear weapons for the primary time in many years, said in October 2025 that China’s nuclear program can be “even” with America’s inside five years.
Russia has also moved to grow and modernize its supplies and repeatedly threatened to make use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in addition to against Kyiv’s western allies.
The Recent START treaty, a key anti-proliferation pact between the U.S. and Russia, is about to run out on Thursday, sparking fears of a looming global arms race.
Trump indicated in an interview with the Recent York Times last month that he’ll let the treaty expire. He has not formally responded to a Russian proposal to maintain observing the treaty’s missile and warhead limits for another yr to permit time to work out what to do after the pact expires.
Non-signatories to the NPT, like India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and Israel, are also believed to be expanding their various nuclear capabilities.
Why acquiring nuclear weapons would not be easy
Experts like Lanoszka and Erath said it could be unwise politically and diplomatically for Canada to try to depart the NPT and begin pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
“I believe any such statement can be met with a bewildered response” by Canadians and the world at large, Lanoszka said.
Also, he added, “The US can be very disinclined to support any type of independent initiative to accumulate nuclear weapons” resulting from its desire to “control escalation risks” — particularly in its own hemisphere.
That might make it extraordinarily difficult for Canada to acquire the equipment obligatory to deliver a nuclear weapon, which might likely have to come back from U.S. defence suppliers, he said.
Erath identified that nuclear threats and deterrence “are only effective should you are prepared to hold them out,” which also helps explain why nuclear fears are rising globally.
“The considered President Putin being able to perform a few of the threats he’s made is one which is sort of frightening,” he said.
Nevertheless, Erath argued that’s precisely why Canada should proceed to co-operate with the U.S. on each collective deterrence and eventual disarmament.
“It’s a wake-up call, and there needs to be some dialogue on this,” he said. “If Canada feels that its security is just not adequately provided for, as an alliance partner, it has the duty to make these concerns known” to each the U.S. and NATO.
“I’m personally an optimist, so I believe we’ll get back to … considering really meaningful reduction in nuclear weapons. You don’t need plenty of nuclear weapons to discourage a possible adversary. It only takes one.”
— with files from The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters