Tom Adams
National Post
January 18, 2002

Letter to the editor:

As India and Pakistan brandish their nuclear weapons at each other, Canadians should remember the role that our federal government has played facilitating nuclear proliferation there.

Canadian General Electric supplied Pakistan with a Canadian-designed reactor in the 1960s. Canada donated a research reactor to India that was used to produce plutonium for India’s first nuclear weapon test in

1974. We also heavily subsidized the creation of India’s joint civilian/military power reactors now used to supply tritium to India’s advanced hydrogen bomb program. Even without the use of nuclear weapons, all of these reactors are potentially devastating military targets.

Nuclear scientists from both countries studied in Canadian nuclear facilities, particularly the Chalk River Nuclear Labs north of Ottawa, the Pickering station, and the Point Lepreau station in New Brunswick. Even now the nuclear establishments of both Pakistan and India are tapping into Canadian nuclear expertise through the CANDU Owners Group – aid that is probably helping their weapons efforts.

Tom Adams
Executive Director
Energy Probe