FEATURE ~

ropelled by a rush of

military propaganda being

presented to the

parliamentary committee on

national defence hearings in
Ottawa last week, the Tory
government’s plans to construct and
deploy 10 to 12 nuclear-powered
submarines are moving forward with
dangerous speed.

Vice-Admiral Charles Thomas,
commander of Canada’s Maritime
Command and a key architect of the
submarine acquisition program,
presented all the familiar arguments to
the parliamentary committee Feb. 2,
insisting that the submarines are
essential to uphold Canadian
sovereignty, not to back up U.S.
offensive strategy. Over the next several
days, various other representatives of
the Canadian Forces are expected to
repeat them.

But while the hearings will allow the
opposition to ask some probing
questions, the process is mainly a
formality. Vice-Admiral Thomas and
Defence Minister Perrin Beatty have
already sold t! Conservative cabinet
on the submar.nes and the acquisition
program is being pushed forward
quickly as part of the federal
government’s new defence policy.

Shortly after the policy was
announced in June, the government
opened negotiations with Britain and
France, the two countries which have
nuclear-powered submarine designs
available to the Canadian Forces. In
mid-January, the Defence Department
stated that it would signing
memorandums of understanding with
the two countries over the next few
weeks, paving the way for a decision
on which submarine design will be
used.

On Jan. 18, the Financial Post
reported that the five competing
corporate groups in Canada vying for
the $8-billion contract to build the subs
were being encouraged to join forces to
present just two bids to enable the
Defence Department to speed up the
decision on a contractor. Industry
representatives have even talked of
merging to make a single bid to speed
the process even further and enable the
government to get something in writing
before an election must be called.

The Post quoted one executive as
saying: “We're operating from the
principle that a delay in the program
could kill it. There’s plenty of activity
for everybody if we all merge.”

As with the free trade agreement, the
Conservative government appears
determined to put in place at least the
initial stages of the submarine program
before any general election.

In so doing, it is stonewalling the
widespread opposition that there is
among Canadians, not only to the
government’s costly submarine
purchase but also to its provocative
defence posture, outlined in Beatty’s
defence white paper.

Clearly that opposition will have to
intensify over the next few months if
Canadians are to halt a program that
could have an explosive effect in the
current international atmosphere.

For the submarine program is more

than just the purchase of a dozen
British Trafalgar or French Rubis-class
vessels — it would put Canada on the
front edge of a dangerous and °
controversial new U.S. maritime
strategy and would be a major
destabilizing force in East-West
relations.

It would also create upheaval in the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, raise
the spectre of nuclear accidents in
Canadian waters and create a massive
federal debt that would threaten social
programs for years to come.

Nearly a year ago, on Mar. 23, 1987,
the New York Times reported that U.S.
Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr.
had earlier unveiled a “‘daring new
maritime strategy.”

According to the strategy, the Times
said, “should war ever break out with
the Soviet Union, the Navy plans to
send submarines and aircraft carrier
battle groups to the North Norwegian
Sea and the Barents Sea, home waters
for the Soviet Navy above the Arctic
Circles.

“A primary goal of this offensive
would be to destroy Soviet nuclear
missile submarines situated in the area
and to prevent other submarines from
pouring into the Atlantic,” the paper
reported.

Although the strategy was initially
controversial within military circles
because of the losses that might be
sustained by the Navy, it has since been
adopted — possibly because Canadian
and other NATO submarines would be
part of the strategy, on the basis of
“NATO commitments.”

Beatty, who described himself in a
later Times story as “the most pro-
American defence minister since World
War II,” has skirted any discussion
about participation in the U.S. strategy
although he acknowledged in an article
in International Conservative Insight
that the submarines “‘can operate
against missile-firing submarines that
threatened North America.”

Vice-Admiral Thomas also rejected a
role in the U.S. forward maritime
strategy although his answers avoided
the real issue. He insisted that he would

Defence con-
tractor’s ad:
corporate, Tory
push for a
costly, danger-
ous program.

Tories submarines

propelling Canada
into risky waters

By Sean Griffin

take orders from a US. officer only if
instructed to do so by the federal
government.

In fact, several continental defence
arrangements — including the
maritime test range at
Nanoose — provide for the U.S. to
assume control in time of crisis.

Whether participation in the
maritime strategy is part of current
policy is uncertain but once the
submarines are purchased, Canada
“could get sucked in,” Liberal defence
critic Doug Frith has warned.

And even if the federal government
is not actively considering participation
in the maritime strategy — an unlikely
position considering its close links with
the U.S. military — the Soviet Union,
for its own security, would have to
assume that Canada was involved.
Unquestionably, the submarine
program will escalate the arms race.

Many key figures in the
disarmament movement, including
former UN disarmament representative
William Epstein, have warned that
acquisition of the nuclear-powered
submarines could eventually lead to the
acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Beatty claimed in a letter to the
Alberni Valley Coalition for Nuclear
Disarmament that the suggestion was
“totally without merit.” But
considering how the Tory government
will compromise its supposedly firm
commitment to the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty with the submarine
purchase, those assurances ring
somewhat hollow.

Under the treaty, signed in 1968,
nuclear materials, such as uranium, are
to be used for peaceful purposes only
and are not to be diverted to the
production of “nuclear weapons or
other nuclear explosive devices.” Under
that provision, the government's plans
to use uranium for its submarine
reactors is theoretically not prohibited,
even though the purpose in military.

But prohibited or not, it would
certainly violate the spirit of the treaty
and would be completely without
precedent in the 20-year history of the
treaty.

“As this has never been done before
by a signatory to the treaty, let alone
by a country such as Canada that has
imposed some of the most stringent
safeguards on its own exports of
nuclear materials and technology, the
negative impact on the nuclear non-
proliferation regime could be
_considerable,” warned John Barrett,
the deputy director of the Canadian
Centre for Arms Control and
Disarmament.

Also without precedent is the
staggering cost of the submarine
acquisition, currently estimated at $8
billion but widely expected to double or
even triple by the time construction is
complete. Financing that and other
military hardware is expected to
increase defence spending by more than
five per cent above inflation every year,
for the decade at least.

Not surprisingly, the Tory
government makes no mention of
deficit reduction where military
spending is involved. But it is a virtual
certainty that social programs would be
cut in direct proportion to increases in
defence outlays.

More than anything, the submarine
program is indicative of the offensive,
cold war tilt in defence policy adopted
‘by the Tory government in its white
paper — a shift that is completely out
of step with Canadian opinion.

That was borne out last week in a
public opinion poll commissioned by
the Canadian Institute for International
Peace and Security, whose executive
director is Geoffrey Pearson, son of
former prime minister Lester B.
Pearson.

The survey revealed that 90 per cent
of Canadians rejected the view,
advanced in the white paper, that the
Soviet Union is the main threat to
Canada’s security. According to UBC
political scientist Donald Munton, who
initiated the survey, only one Canadian
in 10 holds a “cold war set of
perceptions.”

That overwhelming weight of public
opinion has no doubt compelled the
Tories to highlight “Canadian
sovereignty” in their selling pitch for
the submarines. But significantly, the
one piece of hardware that does have
some meaning for Canadian
sovereignty — the Polar 8 icebreaker
which is widely supported by
Canadians — remains stalled at the
letter of intent stage three years after it
was announced while the submarine
program is being hurried up.

In fact nothing could be more
damaging for Canadian sovereignty
that to purchase the nuclear
submarines. They would inevitably
draw this country into a dangerous
military strategy, disrupt the delicate
balance of nuclear non-proliferation
and tie a huge part of the federal
budget to military expenditures.

The danger is that, like the free trade
pact, the Tory government may
attempt to get the program underway
before they are forced to go to an
election. Canadians should do
everything they can to see that it
doesn’t happen.

‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 10, 1988 ¢ 5