In 1945 Canada was a central contributing member of the Manhattan Project and Canada had one of the largest, most modern armed forces in the world. This country also had most of the best, most mineable uranium deposits then known, along with missile delivery systems and cutting edge aerospace technology that would eventually produce the Avro Arrow.

But Canada decided it didn’t want nuclear weapons.

Canada’s leading international diplomat in 1945, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, made the case that all nuclear weapons should be under the control of the United Nations or a similar international body.

Nuclear timelines Aug. 6, 1945 Little Boy, a gun-type uranium bomb, is detonated 579 metres above Hiroshima, Japan. About 90,000 to 100,000 people are killed immediately. Another 145,000 people with radiation sickness and other injuries will die before the end of 1945. Aug. 9, 1945 Fat Man is dropped on Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. President Harry S. Truman tells the American people, “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in the first instance to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians.” However, the official Bombing Survey Report said: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.” More than 95 per cent of those killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians. Aug. 29, 1949 Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb, Joe 1, in Kazakhstan. October, 1962 The United States and Soviet Union narrowly escape an all-out nuclear war over Soviet missiles installed in Cuba. October, 1964 China conducts its first atom bomb tests. Dec. 7, 1965 At the Second Vatican Council the bishops of the Catholic Church call for “a completely fresh reappraisal of war.” March, 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) enters into force. May, 1974 India conducts its first nuclear weapons tests using Canadian technology. June, 1979 The United States and Soviet Union sign the SALT II treaty. March, 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan introduces the concept of missiles shot into outer space, and from orbiting bases, to intercept incoming nuclear weapons. The Strategic Defence Initiative is popularly known as Star Wars from the moment it is introduced. 1985 News reports emerge that Israel may have as many as 200 nuclear weapons. July, 1991 The Soviet Union and United States sign START 1. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty begins a process of dismantling older nuclear weapons. March 1992 South Africa announces it has dismantled its nuclear weapons. November 17, 1993 On the 10th anniversary of “The Challenge of Peace” the U.S. bishops issue “The Harvest of Justice,” noting that deterrence has become permanent and institutionalized. They reject mutual assured destruction as the basis for long-term peace. July, 1996 United Nations General Assembly adopts the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. April 21, 2000 Russian Duma ratifies the CTBT. June 13, 2002 U.S. withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. January, 2003 CIA alleges Iran is developing nuclear weapons. August, 2003 Pentagon officials and scientists discuss development of small, special-purpose nuclear weapons and scenarios to fight wars with nuclear weapons. Dec. 9, 2008 One-hundred international leaders launch the Global Zero campaign in Paris. The church view on the bomb Church teaching about nuclear weapons has evolved through the last half-century, but it has always been very clear that the weapons and their purpose are evil. April 1954 Pope Pius XII joins Albert Einstein calling for a cessation of nuclear weapons testing. April 11, 1963 In the encyclical Pacem in Terris addressed to all men of good will Pope John XXIII is unequivocal about the dangers of nuclear weapons. “Nuclear weapons must be banned,” he writes. Dec. 7, 1965 The bishops of the Catholic Church call for “a completely fresh reappraisal of war,” in the light of weapons of mass destruction. While the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World doesn’t name nuclear weapons, the bishops were understood to be reacting to nuclear arms when they said, “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” The bishops call the arms race “one of the greatest curses on the human race.” June 7, 1982 Pope John Paul II addresses the United Nations, urging them not to be satisfied with a balance of terror. “In current conditions ‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable. Nonetheless in order to ensure peace, it is indispensable not to be satisfied with this minimum which is always susceptible to the real danger of explosion.” May 3, 1983 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issues the pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace.” The bishops contend that while any use of nuclear weapons is morally indefensible, possessing nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence while actively working for nuclear disarmament may be morally acceptable. Nov. 17, 1993 On the 10th anniversary of “The Challenge of Peace” the U.S. bishops issue “The Harvest of Justice” noting that deterrence has become permanent and institutionalized. They reject mutual assured destruction as the basis for long-term peace. July, 2005 The Vatican’s UN ambassador, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, withdraws Vatican support for nuclear deterrence. “When the Holy See expressed its limited acceptance of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, it was with the clearly stated condition that deterrence was only a step on the way toward nuclear disarmament,” he said. “The Holy See has never countenanced nuclear deterrence as a permanent measure, nor does it today when it is evident that nuclear deterrence drives the development of ever newer nuclear arms, thus preventing genuine nuclear disarmament.” Oct. 2, 2008 The Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, calls the NPT “the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.” He says it “must not be allowed to be weakened.”

“If a Canadian statesman said that today he would probably be locked up in the looney bin,” pointed out Axworthy.

But was Pearson nuts, or has the world gone mad?

As a member of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Canada has effectively become a nuclear weapons state without the bother or expense of building and maintaining its own bombs. NATO maintains that its nuclear weapons are a central and essential element of its strategy — even now when there’s no definable enemy like the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

At the same time, Canada is a signatory and major promoter of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Stalemated throughout George W. Bush’s eight years as U.S. president, the NPT commits its signatories to eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons.

What does Canada want? Is it safety under America’s nuclear umbrella or the safety of a nuclear weapons-free world?

“It’s a contradiction we tried to resolve in 1998-99,” said Axworthy, referring to his stint in Foreign Affairs.

Axworthy, along with former Conservative Senator and disarmament ambassador Doug Roche and Senator Romeo Dallaire are now trying to resolve the contradiction by participating in Global Zero, an action plan for kick-starting disarmament negotiations signed by 100 political, business, military and civic leaders in Paris just before Christmas. With such heavyweights as former Soviet politburo chairman Mikhail Gorbachev, Jordan’s Queen Noor, South Africa’s anti-apartheid crusader Bishop Desmond Tutu, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter behind it, Global Zero demands serious negotiations to bring about a binding, verifiable agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons by a fixed date.

The big idea behind Global Zero is that the world must take advantage of Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president to get disarmament back on track.

“This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama told an immense crowd in Berlin while campaigning in July.

Global Zero is the best chance in a long time for serious negotiations on disarmament, said Roche.

“This is not a repudiation of the NPT. It simply recognizes that there has been a paralysis, particularly through the Bush years,” he said. “That vicious hold by the military-industrial complex has got to be broken.”

Disarmament may even be a way for Americans to sidestep their economic downfall, according to Roche.

“If the public ever figures out that the United States is spending over $100 million per day — if Obama could ever bring that figure out — I repeat, in excess of $100 million per day on the maintenance of nuclear weapons at a time when money is desperately needed for all the things they’re talking about, the stimulus of the economy, then there would be a bloody revolution,” he said.

The convergence of Catholic moral teaching and senior diplomats on nuclear weapons could help build real momentum for Global Zero, said Adele Buckley. Buckley is the past chairman of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs in Canada and a member of the International Pugwash Council. The job ahead for Global Zero isn’t just to convince the world’s diplomats and senior political leaders but to build popular support across the globe, she said.

“Most people have bought into the idea, especially in the nuclear weapons states, that deterrence is our most protective thing,” she said. “And it’s simply not true.”

The Vatican once grudgingly accepted the doctrine of deterrence as a temporary measure, morally acceptable so long as the eventual goal was complete disarmament. Since 2005 the Holy See has withdrawn its support for deterrence and observed that deterrence is being used as a pretext for modernizing and expanding nuclear armories.

That’s where the scientists of Pugwash and the bishops of the Catholic Church agree, according to Buckley. The scientists are hoping the Vatican can make the case to a global audience.

“The Vatican has the ears of a very large audience,” she said.

For Buckley, there couldn’t be a more clear-cut moral argument than the argument against massive weapons designed to kill and sicken vast numbers of civilians — weapons held by rich, powerful nations under a doctrine of war suicide bombers could appreciate.

“They are immoral. The International Court of Justice (in 1996) has said they are immoral. There are many voices that say they are immoral,” said Buckley.

But are the nukes Iran may or may not be building to counter Israel’s 100 to 200 undeclared bombs a deal breaker?

“It’s a bit like the Iraq situation all over again,” said Roche, referring to the never-found weapons of mass destruction.

Nobody has proven Iran has violated the NPT, said Roche. The possibility that Iran might build a bomb is in fact good reason to make disarmament happen soon, he said.

“The larger question, which Iran constantly asks is, ‘How come you are permitted to have nuclear weapons and we’re not? How come the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have access to nuclear weapons while the other states are proscribed from acquiring them?’ That is the fundamental question – namely a two-class world,” said Roche.

If the five declared nuclear powers can disarm, Iran will be deprived of its justification for building a nuclear weapon.

“If you can’t make it a perfect world over night, and my experience tells me you cannot, how can you at least alleviate the dangers that inhabit a two-class nuclear world?” Roche asks.