National Security in the Nuclear Age

Publisher:  Operation Dismantle, Ottawa, Canada
Year Published:  1981
Pages:  12pp   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX2146

Abstract: 
This article by the Director of Operation Dismantle provides a rationale for the concrete proposals designed to lead to world disarmament. The fist proposal is a call for a Royal Commission on "National Security in the Nuclear Age." It would be the task of such a Commission to ask how Canada can achieve peaceful co-existence with all other nations, and how we can take a leadership role in developing the world institutions that will be needed to resolve conflict between nations without resort to war.

The second proposal calls for a "Global Referendum on Disarmament". Citing the final document of the UN Special Session on Disarmament which stated that "mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation", the author points out that the choice belongs not to national governments but to mankind. He goes on to day that the logical democratic and non-confrontationalist tool that exists for the purpose of allowing people to choose between one alternative and another is a referendum.

In 1979 the author went to the UN in New York and for three months consulted with 50 national delegations and proved that the proposal for a global referendum on disarmament would receive well over the required two thirds majority. But a crucial meeting at the Canadian Mission was never convened. Operation Dismantle received a letter from Canada's then Minister of External Affairs, the Honourable Flora Macdonald, stating that it wouldn't be "appropriate" for Canada to make this proposal because it was not "Canadian practice" to hold referenda.

The article concludes with a call to the readers to write letters to their Members of Parliament, with copies to the External Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister, support a Canadian proposal for a world vote in the UN General Assembly, and calling for a Royal Commission on National Security in the nuclear age.