Editorial: Canada needs to say no to US-India nuclear deal

Uranium miners from Canada’s northwest to the Australian outback are rubbing their hands with glee as the United States pushes for a nuclear deal with India.

Coming off one of their worst years, the deal will boost uranium demand worldwide and experts say the price will rise as fast as oil this year.

Canada is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and is being asked to sanction the deal.

The deal, being pushed by outgoing U.S. President George Bush, will make billions for the countries involved in the form of uranium exports, reactor sales and technology transfers.

It will also make this world a more dangerous place.

India is a nuclear maverick. It has betrayed Canada before and this deal will trigger another dangerous arms race with its volatile neighbour, Pakistan.

Canada has played a strident role in India‘s nuclear march which has directly and indirectly led to the proliferation of a nuclear K-mart in Asia.

We gave India a nuclear research reactor in the early seventies and the South Asian behemoth promptly used the plutonium manufactured in the reactor to make a bomb.

India then tested the bomb at the infamous Pokhran desert site in 1974, triggering howls of outrage around the world and frightening Pakistan into speeding up its own nuclear program.

Canada retaliated by cutting off nuclear assistance to India, but by then the country had transferred enough technology to independently build seven Canadian Candu ‘clones.’

In 1998, the Canadian-taxpayer-funded arms race between Pakistan and India blew up with India detonating five nuclear test bombs, prompting Pakistan to explode six of its own.

While working with India, the tax-dollar guzzling Atomic Energy of Canada was training Pakistan’s nuclear scientists and engineers in Karachi, Ontario and New Brunswick.

All of them were working for Pakistan’s nuclear godfather, Dr. A.Q. Khan, who made millions of dollars in the nuclear black-market.

This deal with the United States will push India further away from the nonproliferation mainstream and increase India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons.

It will then force Pakistan to respond by expanding its own nuclear capability.

The world nuclear regulatory body will meet on August 1 to consider India’s plan for safeguarding its nuclear facilities.

New Delhi promises that if it is allowed to pursue the U.S. deal it will open its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection.

But its nuclear weapons sites would remain off-limits.

There is legitimate fear that India’s nuclear revival will free-up additional radioactive material for bomb-making purposes.

India has also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, outlawing nuclear tests.

Canada’s reputation as a champion for a safer world has been tarnished by our role in making India a dangerous nuclear power.

We need to fix that now by saying no to the U.S.-India nuclear deal.