OTTAWA – Anti-nuclear campaigners who want Canada to push for a global ban on nuclear weapons are concerned that Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion is showing a definite lack of enthusiasm towards that goal.
Dion said in a speech earlier this month that the current global security environment is simply not conducive to a ban on nuclear weapons because some states just won’t relinquish them.
Cesar Jaramillo, the executive director of the peace group Project Ploughshares, says there’s never a perfect time to push for such a ban, and the time to start is now.
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Nuclear disarmament and security will be front and centre later this week as U.S. President Barack Obama hosts his final Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be attending the two-day summit, which is focused on curbing nuclear terrorism by cracking down of the trafficking of materials to build such a weapon.
Obama announced the initiative in a landmark speech in Prague in 2009, in which he expressed his aspiration for a world free of nuclear weapons, even if it didn’t come in his lifetime.
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