Canada’s Defence Minister says the government has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons as countries weigh whether to develop such a deterrent,
The Globe and Mail reports.
Retired general Wayne Eyre, the country’s former top soldier, told an Ottawa defence forum on Monday that while he doesn’t advocate incorporating such weapons into the country’s arsenal, Canada should “keep our options open.”
Defence Minister David McGuinty, however, said Tuesday the Liberal government will stick to rearming Canada with more conventional weapons.
“Canada has absolutely no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons,” he told reporters.
He said the government is committed to the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Canada signed and ratified in the late 1960s.
“Canada has been a non-nuclear proliferation state for a long time,” Mr. McGuinty said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney last year injected more than $84-billion into the Department of National Defence to be spent over a half decade. It’s believed to be the biggest short-term cash infusion for the military since the Korean War.
The new spending, which helps Canada meet a higher NATO spending target, will fund pay raises, precision-strike capabilities, upgrades to aging infrastructure and cyberdefences, among other things.
Mr. McGuinty said Canada plans to rebuild and rearm its military, but not in a way that contravenes the international treaty.
With the United States becoming more unreliable as a security partner under President Donald Trump, countries have been considering whether they need their own nuclear deterrent.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine inherited a huge nuclear arsenal but agreed in the 1990s to give it up in return for written security assurances – assurances Russia later violated when it seized Crimea in 2014 and launched a full‑scale invasion in 2022.
Janice Gross Stein, the Belzberg professor of conflict management at the University of Toronto, said Canada does not need to keep its options open when it comes to nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear weapons are a poor bet for Canada under any conceivable circumstances,” Prof. Stein said. “We will never use them, and their deterrent value is greatly exaggerated.”
