Canada and weapons of mass destruction

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Weapons of mass destruction
By type
By country
Proliferation
Treaties

Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
in 1970.

Nuclear weapons

Introduction

The first US nuclear weapon entered Canada in 1950 when the US Air Force

V Force. The bombs were landed; crews relieved; aircraft refueled, or repaired; without returning to bases in the continental US. Nuclear weapons designs of the time were easily damaged but precise devices, that required off-aircraft inspection (after landing), and environmental sheltering (at a secure warm/dry location) while their carrier aircraft was on the ground for routine maintenance or repair.[1]

From 1963 to 1984, Canada fielded a total of four tactical nuclear weapons systems which deployed several hundred nuclear warheads.[2]

Throughout the

White Paper on Defence to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to ensure he would not, "find anything in these references contrary to any views [he] may have expressed," although "references" may indicate quotes or glosses in the paper attributed to him, which they wished him to verify as authentic and correct, thus making the gesture a polite courtesy.[3]

Canada withdrew three of the four nuclear-capable weapons systems by 1972. The single system retained, the AIR-2 Genie had a yield of 1.5 kilotons, and was designed to strike enemy aircraft as opposed to ground targets, and may not qualify as a weapon of mass destruction given its limited yield.

Early history: World War II and into the Cold War

North American Warning Lines - Arrays of radar stations arranged east-west across the continent to provide to NORAD information in the case of incoming Soviet bombing sorties.

Canada's military relationship with the United States has grown significantly since the

Austro-Hungarian Empire: Constitutionally, Canada was subject to the British declaration of war, as were other British Dominion countries. Canadian foreign policy became independent in December 1931 (save for the issues of Commonwealth/Dominion war and peace) with the passage of the Statute of Westminster.[4]
On September 10, 1939, Canada
declared war on Japan on December 7, a day earlier than the US and the UK's declaration
.

One of the first formal agreements for military cooperation was made in August 1940. Known as the

Permanent Joint Board on Defence.[6]
Both the United States and Canada are founding members of the
USSR
.

In the 1942 Quebec Agreement, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to develop the "Tube Alloys" Project and created a committee to manage the project which included C. D. Howe, the Canadian Minister of Munitions and Supply. This was the code name for the British Uranium Committee project which had worked on a theoretical design for an atomic bomb. One significant contribution was a calculation of the critical mass of uranium. The mass was less than earlier estimates and suggested that development of a fission bomb was practical.[10] "Tube Alloys" was part of a shipment of the most secret scientific research in Great Britain that was sent to the United States for safekeeping when the threat of German invasion was significant. Materials included the

Jet Engine
designs as well as "Tube Alloys".

Canada's role in the Manhattan Project besides providing raw material, including uranium ore from a northern mine which may have been used in the construction of the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945,[11][12] was to provide at least one scientist working at Los Alamos (Louis Slotin), and hosting the Montreal Laboratory which took over from Tube Alloys. Canada would continue to supply fissionable material to the US and other allies throughout the Cold War although Canada never developed indigenous nuclear weapons as did NATO allies France and the United Kingdom.[13]

After briefly allowing nuclear weapons to be temporarily stationed in Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada agreed to a long term lease of the Goose Bay base to the US

B-52
bomber forces.

In 1951 the Pinetree Line was established north of the US-Canada border, and in 1953 Canada built the Mid-Canada Line, which was manned by the Canadian military.[15] In 1954 the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW) was established jointly by the US and Canada in the Arctic.[16] The Pinetree Line was built to control the air battle between the NORAD interceptor forces and manned Soviet bombers. Beginning with

CF-101s
by 1970. Some of this is due to improved technology but more is due to the decline of the bomber threat and reductions in Canadian military spending.

Inventory of Canada's nuclear armaments

  • BCIM-10 BOMARC; Warhead: W40 7-10 kiloton
    BCIM-10 BOMARC; Warhead: W40 7-10 kiloton
  • MGR-1 Honest John; Warhead W7 8-61 kiloton
    MGR-1 Honest John; Warhead W7 8-61 kiloton
  • CF-104 Starfighter; Warhead: B57 bomb 5-20 kilotons; B28 bomb 70-350 kt; B43 bomb 1 Mt
    CF-104 Starfighter; Warhead: B57 bomb 5-20 kilotons; B28 bomb 70-350 kt; B43 bomb 1 Mt
  • Voodoo weapons test; Combat Warhead: W25 1.5 kilotons
    Voodoo weapons test; Combat Warhead: W25 1.5 kilotons

St. Lawrence river, contaminating the river with uranium-238. The detonation was near Saint-André-de-Kamouraska.[18] In 1953, Strategic Air Command constructed ten new reinforced concrete buildings as part of a heavily secured weapon storage area located at 53°17′43.9″N 60°22′36.6″W / 53.295528°N 60.376833°W / 53.295528; -60.376833, surrounded by two barbed wire fences and several armed guard towers. Goose Air Base Weapons Storage Area was the only weapons storage area in Canada constructed to house the Mark 4, AIM-26 Falcon, and AIR-2 Genie nuclear weapons. [19]

On

example needed] and this revealed[by whom?][where?
] to the world that the delivery had taken place.

The warheads were never in the sole possession of Canadian personnel. They were the property of the

Government of the United States
and were always under the direct supervision of a "Custodial Detachment" from the United States Air Force (or Army, in the case of Honest John warheads).

Through 1984, Canada would deploy four American designed nuclear weapons delivery systems accompanied by hundreds of warheads:

  • 56 CIM-10 BOMARC surface-to-air missiles.[21]
  • 4 MGR-1 Honest John rocket systems, each with four rockets and four warheads, for a total of 16 W31 nuclear warheads the Canadian Army deployed in Germany.[21]
  • 108 nuclear W25 Genie rockets carried by 54 CF-101 Voodoos.[21]
  • estimates of 90 to 210 tactical (20–60 kiloton) nuclear warheads assigned to 6 CF-104 Starfighter squadrons (about 90 aircraft) based with NATO in Europe (there is a lack of open sources detailing exactly how many warheads were deployed).[22]

In practice, each of 36 NATO squadrons (initially six Canadian squadrons Number 1 Air Division RCAF) would provide two aircraft and pilots to a Quick Reaction Alert facility. The 'Q' aircraft could be launched with an armed US nuclear weapon within 15 minutes of receiving the 'go' order. This arrangement was called the NATO Quick Reaction Alert Force. It provided a dispersed force upwards of 100 strike aircraft for use on short notice. Missions were targeted at troop concentrations, airfields, bridges, assembly and choke points and other tactical targets in order to slow the massive tank formations of the

Rhine River
.

In total, there were between 250 and 450 nuclear warheads on Canadian bases between 1963 and 1972. There were at most 108 Genie missiles armed with 1.5 kiloton W25 warheads present from 1963 to 1984. There may have been fewer due to attrition of CF-101s as the program aged and as incoming

Newfoundland.[24]

This number decreased significantly through the years as various systems were withdrawn from service. The Honest John was retired by the Canadian Army in 1970. The Bomarc missile was phased out in 1972 and the CF-104 Strike/Attack squadrons in West Germany were reduced in number and reassigned to conventional ground attack at about the same time. From late in 1972, the CF-101 interceptor force remained as the only nuclear-armed system in Canadian use until it was replaced by the CF-18 in 1984.[25]

Cold War relationship with the US

Canada's Cold War military doctrine and fate was inextricably tied with that of the United States. The two nations shared responsibility for continental air defence through NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) and both belonged to NATO and contributed forces in Europe. Should nuclear war with the USSR have broken out, Canada would have been in harm's way because of the geographic position between both the USSR and US. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's 1987 Canadian White Paper on Defence acknowledged this reality citing that, "Soviet strategic planners must regard Canada and the United States as a single set of military targets no matter what political posture we might assume."[26] This sums up Canada's Cold War predicament well, as Canada's geo-political relationship with the US meant that Canada would inevitably be widely devastated by any US-Soviet nuclear exchange, whether it was targeted or not. It led to a familiar phrase of the time, "incineration without representation".[27]

The DEW Line and Pinetree Line radar systems formed the backbone of continental air defense in the 1950s and 1960s. The most likely routes for Soviet aircraft attacking the United States came through Canada. In particular, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States would be approached through the

AIM-26
Nuclear Falcon missiles as this was a standard configuration on the F-102.

Canada hosted no intercontinental strategic bombers but the Strategic Air Command base at Goose Bay Labrador hosted a large number of

KC-135
air refueling tankers. These were intended to top up the fuel tanks of the outbound B-52 strike force headed for targets in the USSR. They also supported the SAC Airborne Alert Force and would have refueled any surviving bombers returning from the USSR.

"Incineration without representation"

For the Canadian public, "incineration without representation" led to a popular belief that the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) was in Canada's best interest. MAD was the Cold War doctrine which held that as long as both the US and USSR possessed significant nuclear arsenals, any nuclear war would assuredly destroy both nations, thereby discouraging either state from launching any nuclear offensive. For Canadians, MAD was appealing in this light, as Canada was unlikely to emerge from any nuclear exchange unscathed given its position between the two countries, considering that any weapons shot down or falling short were likely to fall on Canadian soil.

In Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1971 Defence White Paper, this dynamic was noted:

"One of the most important changes in international affairs in recent years had been the increase in stability of nuclear deterrence, and the emergence of what is, in effect, nuclear parity between the United States and the Soviet Union. Each side now has sufficient nuclear strength to assure devastating retaliation in the event of a surprise attack by the other, and thus neither could rationally consider launching a deliberate attack."[28]

Even as late as 1987, Prime Minister Mulroney's Defence White Paper acknowledged that, "each superpower now has the capacity to obliterate the other,…the structure of mutual deterrence today is effective and stable. The Government believes that it must remain so."[29] Given the prospect of "incineration without representation", Canadians seemed to feel that the doctrine which most encouraged restraint was the strategically soundest one to support.

Canadians were still nervous about US foreign policy, however. In 1950, when U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced that Washington had not entirely ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in Korea, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson recalled the remarks caused Ottawa to collectively "shudder".[30] One Cold War contemporary observer even remarked that,

"Canadians often think that their neighbour to the south exhibits wild swings of emotional attachments… with other countries; that it is impatient, is prone to making sweeping judgments, and generally lacks sophistication and subtlety in its approach to the Soviet bloc and the cold war."[31]

However, if Canadian leadership was nervous about US foreign policy, they did not voice their discontent through actions. Canada was consistently and significantly cooperative with the United States when it came to nuclear weapons doctrine and deployments through the Cold War.

Continued cooperation with the US to present

The Government of Canada formally agreed to every major

NORAD program; as well, Canada cooperated with the US when it came to research, early warning, surveillance and communications.[33] Canada was second only to West Germany in hosting nuclear related facilities.[34]
In short, the Canadian Government was thoroughly committed to supporting US nuclear doctrine and deployments through the Cold War, in spite of any popular reservations concerning this dynamic.

While it has no more permanently stationed nuclear weapons as of 1984, Canada continues to cooperate with the United States and its nuclear weapons program. Canada allows testing of nuclear weapon delivery systems; nuclear weapon carrying vessels are permitted to visit Canadian ports; and aircraft carrying nuclear warheads are permitted to fly in Canadian airspace with the permission of the Canadian government.[35] There is, however, popular objection to this federal policy. Over 60% of Canadians live in cities or areas designated "Nuclear Weapons Free", reflecting a contemporary disinclination towards nuclear weapons in Canada.[35] Canada also remains under the NATO 'nuclear umbrella'; even after disarming itself in 1984, Canada has maintained support for nuclear armed nations as doing otherwise would be counter to Canadian NATO commitments.[36]

Chemical weapons

During both

1972 London Convention
prohibited further marine dumping of UXOs, however the chemical weapons existing off the shores of Nova Scotia for over 60 years continue to bring concern to local communities and the fishing industry.

Human testing of chemical weapons such as

riot control agents, such as tear gas and pepper spray, which are classified as non-lethal weapons
for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Biological weapons

Canada had a biological warfare research program in the early to middle part of the 20th century. Canadian research involved developing protections against biowarfare attacks and for offensive purposes, often with the help of the UK and the US.[40] Canada has thus experimented with such things as weaponized anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin, rinderpest virus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, plague, Brucellosis and tularemia. CFB Suffield is the leading research centre. Canada says it has destroyed all military stockpiles and no longer conducts toxin warfare research. As with chemical weapons, the Biological and Chemical Defence Review Committee has since 1990 conducted annual site visits and inspections at CFB Suffield and elsewhere to verify that all remaining military activities involving biological warfare agents are purely defensive in nature. Canada ratified the Biological Weapons Convention on September 18, 1972.

Disarmament

Canada is a member of every international disarmament organization and is committed to pushing for an end to nuclear weapons testing, reduction in nuclear arsenals, a ban on all chemical and biological weapons, bans on weapons in outer space, and blocks on nuclear proliferation. However, in recent years it has become less vocal on the issue of disarmament; the need for increased border defence, particularly in the Territories, has recently overshadowed other issues in military circles.

Canada maintains a division of its

Foreign Affairs department devoted to pursuing these ends. It also dedicates significant resources in trying to verify that current treaties are being obeyed, passing much information on to the United Nations. In the 1970s, Canada discussed building a reconnaissance satellite to monitor adherence to such treaties, but these plans were shelved. A public furor arose in 1983, when the Canadian government approved a plan to test cruise missiles in Alberta.[41]

Canada continues to promote peaceful nuclear technology exemplified by the

CANDU reactor. Unlike most designs, the CANDU does not require enriched fuel, and in theory is therefore much less likely to lead to the development of weaponized missile fuel. However, like all power reactor designs, CANDU reactors produce and use plutonium in their fuel rods during normal operation (roughly 50% of the energy generated in a CANDU reactor comes from the in situ fission of plutonium created in the uranium fuel),[42] and this plutonium could be used in a nuclear explosive if separated and converted to metallic form (albeit only as reactor-grade plutonium, and therefore of limited military usefulness). Accordingly, CANDU reactors, like most power reactors in the world, are subject to safeguards under the United Nations which prevent possible diversion of plutonium. CANDU reactors are designed to be refuelled while running, which makes the details of such safeguards significantly different from other reactor designs. The end result, however, is a consistent and internationally accepted level of proliferation risk. The CANDU reactor was also proposed as a means of destroying surplus plutonium through using MOX fuel due to its capability of online fuel shuffling providing flexibility to deal with different reactor kinetics.[43]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  2. ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  3. ^ Clearwater, John (1999). U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Canada. Dundurn Press Ltd. p. 12.
  4. ^ Statute of Westminster, 1931 - Enactment No. 17
  5. ^ CBC Archives, On This Day, Sept. 10, 1939
  6. ^ "Ogdensburg Agreement".
  7. ^ "United Nations".
  8. ^ "NATO".
  9. ^ "NORAD".
  10. ISBN 9780070210882
    .
  11. ^ Stacey, C. P. (1970). Arms, Men and Government: The War Policies of Canada, 1939 - 1945 (PDF). The Queen's Printer by authority of the Minister of National Defence. p. 514. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2012-09-06.
  12. ISBN 9780920357163
    .
  13. ISBN 9780888303325
    .
  14. ^ Whitaker, Reginald (1994). Cold War Canada: the Making of a National Insecurity State 1945-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 144.
  15. ^ Whitaker, Reginald (1994). Cold War Canada: the Making of a National Insecurity State 1945-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. xvi.
  16. ^ Whitaker, Reginald (1994). Cold War Canada: the Making of a National Insecurity State 1945-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. xx.
  17. ^ Clearwater, John (1998). Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story. Dundurn Press Ltd. p. 18.
  18. ^ "Broken Arrow: Lost Nuclear Weapons in Canada". Retrieved 9 July 2023.
  19. ^ "Camping Canadian: Goose Air Base | (Nuclear) Weapons Storage Area". 13 March 2016.
  20. ^ The Globe and Mail. 2 January 1964. p. 2. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  21. ^
    ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  22. ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  23. ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  24. ISBN 9781550022995
    .
  25. ^ History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through 1977. Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defence (Atomic Energy).
  26. ^ Government of Canada, Department of National Defence (1987). Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. p. 10.
  27. ^ Jockel, J.T.; J.J. Sokolsky (1999). "Canada's Cold War Nuclear Experience". Queens Quarterly (Special Issue): 111.
  28. ^ Government of Canada, Minister of National Defence (1971). White Paper on Defence: Defence in the 70s. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. p. 4.
  29. ^ Government of Canada, Department of National Defence (1987). Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. p. 17.
  30. ^ Pearson, Lester B (1973). Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol.2, 1948-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 165.
  31. ^ Conant, Melvin (1962). The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defence of North America. New York: Harper & Bros. p. 67.
  32. ^ Jockel, J.T.; J.J. Sokolsky (1999). "Canada's Cold War Nuclear Experience". Queens Quarterly (Special Issue): 115.
  33. ^ Jockel, J.T.; J.J. Sokolsky (1999). "Canada's Cold War Nuclear Experience". Queens Quarterly (Special Issue): 116.
  34. ^ Arkin, William (1985). Nuclear Battlefields: Global Links in the Arms Race. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. pp. 78.
  35. ^
    ISBN 9780920357163
    .
  36. ^ "Canada's Position on Nuclear Weapons Free Zones". The Disarmament Bulletin (Summer–Autumn): 12. 1986.
  37. ^ Campion-Smith, Bruce (2005-07-18). "Nerve Gas Tests Revealed". Toronto Star.
  38. ^ Sea-dumped munitions: An unseen threat
  39. ^ "CHEMICAL & BIO WEAPONS MEMBERSHIP" (PDF). Nuclear Threat Initiative. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  40. ISBN 0-7710-1724-3
    .
  41. ^ Cruise missile testing coming to Canada - CBC, July 15, 1983.
  42. ^ Rouben, Ben, Introduction to Reactor Physics Archived 2007-04-15 at the Wayback Machine - CANTEACH Archived 2011-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, September, 2002.
  43. ^ "The Canadian Nuclear FAQ - Section F: Security and Non-Proliferation".

Further reading

External links
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