Canada and weapons of mass destruction
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.
[3] Throughout the Cold War, Canada was closely aligned with defensive elements of United States programs in both NORAD and NATO.
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.
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.
[9] In 1957, they signed the NORAD Agreement, which created the North American Air Defense Command[10] to defend the continent against attacks from the USSR.
Materials shared through the Tizard Mission included the cavity magnetron which improved radar, British information related to the German Enigma machines, jet engine designs as well as the Frisch-Peierls memorandum.
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,[12][13] was to provide at least one scientist working at Los Alamos (Louis Slotin), and hosting the Montreal Laboratory which took over from Tube Alloys.
[17] The Pinetree Line was built to control the air battle between the NORAD interceptor forces and manned Soviet bombers.
Beginning with Ground-controlled interception updated from the Second World War, the system has been computerized and automated with at least four new generations of technology being employed.
It was clear, even in the early years of the Cold War, that on paper, Canada and the US were to be jointly responsible for the defence of the continent.
In execution, Canadian investment in air defence has decreased significantly with the decline of the intercontinental strategic bomber threat.
[19] 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.
[20] On New Year's Eve in 1963, the Royal Canadian Air Force delivered a shipment of nuclear warheads to the Bomarc missile site near RCAF Station North Bay.
[24] In addition, between 1968 and 1994 the United States stored the Mk 101 Lulu and B57 nuclear bombs at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland.
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.
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.
In particular, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States would be approached through the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap and a line of SAGE search radars ran down the coast of Labrador and southeast to St. John's, Newfoundland.
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.
In Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1971 Defence White Paper, this dynamic was noted: 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.
In 1950, when U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced that Washington had not entirely ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in Korea, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson recalled that the remarks caused Ottawa to collectively "shudder".
[31] One Cold War contemporary observer even remarked that, However, if Canadian leadership was nervous about U.S. 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.
The Government of Canada formally agreed to every major North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategic document, including those that implied a US strike-first policy.
[35] 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.
[39] The 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.
[citation needed][dubious – discuss] Canada eventually abandoned the use of lethal chemical weapons, and had to devote a great deal of effort to safely destroying them.
[40] Canada still employs riot control agents, such as tear gas and pepper spray, which are classified as non-lethal weapons for domestic law enforcement purposes.
[41] Canada has thus experimented with such things as weaponized anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin, rinderpest virus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, plague, Brucellosis and tularemia.
