Dear Prime Minister,
We, the more than one hundred undersigned, all having been honoured by appointment to the Order of Canada, appeal to you and your Government to give urgent attention and leadership to re-energizing nuclear disarmament in the face of mounting nuclear dangers. Any such efforts will win the overwhelming support of Canadians.
The world has entered its most dangerous nuclear moment since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis As former US Defense Secretary William Perry has concluded, “The likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War.”
North Korea’s violations of its Security Council obligations and its irresponsible nuclear attack threats are now matched by reckless counter-threats; the world’s disarmament machinery suffers from a severe loss of confidence; the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has failed to deliver on its promise of abolition: the arsenals of the major powers are being “modernized” instead of dismantled; NATO, including its non-nuclear weapons members, continues to embrace nuclear deterrence: the risk of deliberate nuclear weapons use is compounded by the growing dangers of miscalculation and accidental nuclear attack…. [Continue reading (pdf)]