CNANW

CNANW Letter to Prime Minister Carney

May 22, 2025
The Right Honourable Mark Carney
Prime Minister of Canada

c.c. The Hon. Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
c.c. The Hon. David McGuinty, Minister of National Defence

(N.B. The Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW) consists of 17 Canadian NGOs dedicated to nuclear disarmament. List of Signatories follows*)

Dear Prime Minister Carney,

Congratulations on becoming Prime Minister of Canada. You have assumed the responsibilities of leadership at a critical time in Canadian and world history.

Canada’s sovereignty, economy and the preservation of Canadian values will no doubt be among your highest priorities. As you have noted however, the well-being of Canadians can only be fully secured within a broader international context where rule of law prevails, human rights are respected and the world is free of existential threats.

Your work as UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance attests to your commitment to protecting our planet’s environment. Equally critical and quite possibly more immediate, is the threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons – the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

The nuclear arms control architecture has all but disintegrated. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and Open Skies Treaty between the US and Russia have faltered. Prospects for renewal of New START in 2026 appear grim and both the US and Russia have lowered their respective thresholds for the use of nuclear weapons. One threatens “fire and fury” in another context while the other explicitly threatens to use nuclear weapons if third parties directly intervene in defence of a nation that it has invaded.  India and Pakistan continue to square off in Kashmir, North Korea remains a threat to the Peninsula, Israel is at war and France and UK are considering extending their nuclear ‘umbrellas’ eastward.

Not one nuclear armed state has joined the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Nor have any who are party to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) begun to fulfill their Article VI legal obligation “to pursue effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Quite the opposite. All nine nuclear armed states are modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems and at least six non-nuclear states have signalled interest in developing their own nuclear capability. In short, the world is witnessing a new nuclear arms race and could be on the brink of a new era of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Add to this the very real possibility that non-state actors will acquire nuclear weapons and/or the ability to trigger a nuclear conflict through cyber warfare, along with the risk of accident or human miscalculation which have already taken humanity to the edge of nuclear disaster on numerous occasions.

Former Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, after in-depth review in the mid-1990s of the risks of another nuclear event concluded, “It has not been a result of good policy or good management that the world has avoided a nuclear weapons catastrophe for 70 years: Rather it has been sheer dumb luck.”

Global tensions have only increased since. The ‘Doomsday Clock’ established in 1947 by atomic scientists, has been advanced to 89 seconds to midnight, closer to “Doomsday” than at any point in history.

In addition to utter destruction within a nuclear blast radius and radioactive contamination that could encircle the globe, scientists estimate that the smoke and debris that would be ejected into the earth’s atmosphere from the detonation of less than 3% of the global stock of nuclear weapons would result in a nuclear winter that would last a decade or more. Widespread starvation would wipe out at least a third of humanity. A wider exchange of nuclear weapons could end life on earth as we know it, if not completely.

Possible Canadian Leadership on Nuclear Disarmament

A Nanos national poll conducted in 2021 found that more than 80% of Canadians believe that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous and should be eliminated, and that Canada can play an important role in this regard.

There has also been support in Parliament. Building upon former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s efforts in the 1980s to “suffocate the nuclear arms race”, in 2010 a motion was adopted unanimously by the House of Commons and Senate that “encourages the Government of Canada to engage in negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention…and to deploy a major world-wide Canadian diplomatic initiative in support of preventing nuclear proliferation and increasing the rate of nuclear disarmament.” No significant action followed.

In 2018, the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence issued an all-Party recommendation: “That the Government of Canada take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving the NATO goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons. That this initiative be undertaken on an urgent basis in view of the increasing threat of nuclear conflict flowing from the renewed risk of nuclear proliferation, the deployment of so-called tactical nuclear weapons and changes in nuclear doctrines regarding lowering the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons by Russia and the US.” Again, no significant action was undertaken by the Government of the day.

On 21 September 2020, an historic and powerful Open Letter pleading for urgent action on nuclear disarmament was issued by 56 former senior office holders – statesmen all –  including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, 3 Presidents, 11 Prime Ministers, 16 Ministers of Defence and 24 Foreign Ministers –  2 of whom served as Secretary General of NATO. Among the signatories are former Canadian Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and John Turner, as well as former Ministers Lloyd Axworthy, Jean-Jacques Blais, Bill Graham, John McCallum and John Manley. Of note, signatories included individuals from 19 NATO states.

The late Pope Francis denounced nuclear weapons on innumerable occasions as well, insisting that nuclear disarmament must be “thorough and complete, and reach men’s very souls”. Religious leaders throughout the world echo his message.

Prime Minister, in your book ‘Values’ you cite several examples of past Canadian leadership on the international stage: Brian Mulroney driving sanctions against apartheid and the Montreal Protocol on chlorofluorocarbons, Lloyd Axworthy’s work to ban anti-personnel landmines and Grand Chief Littlechild’s pivotal role in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

One could add, Lester Pearson’s role in settling the Suez crisis and establishing UN Peacekeeping, Canada’s prominent role in crafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in establishing the International Criminal Court, codas for the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict and the Commission on Intervention on State Sovereignty that prescribed the bold concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).  So much to make Canada proud! Clearly, Canadian diplomacy can and has had major impact on global affairs.

As President of the G7 and member of the G20, the Commonwealth, la Francophonie and NATO, Canada is extremely well placed to play a leadership role on nuclear disarmament – to challenge the status quo and press NATO states to engage all nuclear-armed states to reverse the nuclear arms race and undertake negotiations leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. As many have said, “To get rid of them before they get rid of us!”

The vast majority of nations and peoples of the world would celebrate such a profoundly important initiative from Canada. Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones have already been established in Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia – involving 138 of the 193 UN member states. Indeed, a high percentage of the population in most nations support nuclear disarmament, even if their governments may not at this time.

August 6th of this year will mark 80 years since atomic horror was unleashed upon the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such unspeakable inhumanity must never be permitted to occur again. This much we owe to our children and to future generations. We respectfully urge you and your government to pursue nuclear disarmament with resolve, determination and urgency – as though another nuclear event were imminent – because it very well could be.

With warmest regards and best wishes for success throughout your tenure as Prime Minister of Canada.

Sincerely,

Earl Turcotte
Chairperson, Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW)

CNANW Members and Co-Signatories

Canadian Pugwash Group – Mr. Cesar Jaramillo, Chairperson

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility – Gordon Edwards Ph.D, President

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace – Ms. Lyn Adamson, Co-Chair

Canadian Peace Research Association – Dr. Erika Simpson, President

Group of 78 – Mr. Roy Culpepper, Chairperson

Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition – Ms. Rosemary Keenan, Chairperson

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Canada) – Dr. John Guilfoyle, President

Project Ploughshares – Mr. Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director

Project Save the World – Dr. Metta Spencer, President

Religions for Peace Canada – Sister Pascale Fremond, President

Rideau Institute – Ms. Peggy Mason, President

Science for Peace – Dr. Jorge Filmus, President

World Federalist Movement – Canada – Alexandre MacIsaac, Executive Director

Other Members of the Network

Canadian Federation of University Women

Friends of Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention

United Nations Association in Canada

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

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PDF version of this letter: CNANW letter to PM Carney – May 22, 2025