An open letter to Jagmeet Singh: Take a stand on the nuclear treaty

The website of the NDP features a link to your platform, with detailed discussions of policy proposals in a number of categories ranging from health care, economics to environment and Indigenous issues.

Oddly, there is no discussion anywhere on your site of Canadian foreign policy or the NDP’s position on matters of foreign and security policy. Does this suggest the NDP fully supports the foreign policies of the Trudeau government, including its militaristic approach and rejection of diplomacy in the conflict in Ukraine, the expansion of NATO, its consistent hostility to China, and its illegal role in promoting regime change and sanctions against the people of Venezuela?

Perhaps the most glaring omission is the absence of any declared position on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It was only a few months ago that the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council (all nuclear powers, including China and Russia) issued a joint statement that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. None of them has signed on to the treaty and all are engaged in modernizing/expanding their nuclear arsenals in clear violation of their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to work to dismantle them.

Nuclear weapons, despite the end of the Cold War three decades ago, still are the most immediate existential threat, not just to Canada but to all humanity and the other species we share the planet with.

The consensus of informed scientists around the world, as expressed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock, is that humanity has never been closer to nuclear self-destruction than it is at this moment. Despite this frightening reality, the government of Justin Trudeau has refused to sign onto the treaty or even to attend the first meeting of states parties (signatories to the treaty, as well as those sympathetic to it) held in Austria last month.

Is this also the position of the NDP? Do you really believe that Canada, which is not a nuclear power, is made safer by the possession of these weapons by other states?

In response to the Trump administration's unilateral abrogation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement and the Open Skies Treaty — after the administration of George W. Bush abandoned the U.S. commitment to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty — the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has kept its Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight since January 2020.

As Angela Kane, the former UN high representative for disarmament and under-secretary-general, starkly put it: “The arms control architecture, which constituted a strong pillar of strategic stability even in the highly rivalrous Cold War environment, has crumbled.”

All of this was before Russia invaded Ukraine, raising tensions between the two largest nuclear powers on the planet to unprecedented levels. With President Vladimir Putin warning of “consequences, the likes of which have never been seen” for any country doing what NATO is now doing — arming Ukraine — how long until a tactical nuclear weapon is deployed, or a NATO country supplying arms is attacked, leading to a tit-for-tat escalation to a full nuclear exchange?

We are, in fact, already in a nuclear war if we accept that the mere threat of nuclear attack (implicit in Putin’s warning) is the use of nuclear weapons. We would note that a state’s possession of nuclear weapons is an implicit threat to use them.

Neither the use, threat nor possession of nuclear weapons is in keeping with existing international humanitarian law or basic morality. International law unambiguously outlaws the targeting of civilian populations. Clearly, nuclear weapons, by the scale of their destructive powers, are contrary to this prohibition, quite independently of the TPNW.

A recent Nanos poll indicates that well over 70 per cent of Canadians support becoming a party to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Similar numbers support the treaty, even in the face of opposition from the U.S. Nonetheless, our government has refused to support it.

The Trudeau government and the Liberal Party do not control a majority of the seats in Parliament and rely on the NDP’s support to implement their legislative agenda. It appears to be an ideal situation in which the NDP could assert itself by making its support contingent on the Trudeau government respecting the preferences of the majority of Canadians by joining the treaty.

Given the poll cited above, taking this position is unlikely to negatively affect the NDP’s appeal among voters. The government claim that our NATO membership precludes signing the treaty has already been debunked in an extensive study by Harvard Law School.

While none of the NATO members has signed the treaty, several at least attended the first conference of states parties to the treaty as observers. As “elected representatives,” it is your duty — as you should not need reminding — to act in the interest of the safety of our country and its citizens and to reflect the opinions of the majority of those who elected you. Both of these duties compel you to push our government to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Arnd Jurgensen has been active in environmental and peace movements for over 40 years and is a musician who performs regularly around Toronto and elsewhere. He is currently doing research and teaching courses on international politics at the University of Toronto and is the chair of the nuclear weapons working group at Science for Peace.