Explained : Canada must acknowledge the implications of selling uranium to India and Its Impact

Gordon Edwards, PhD, is a science educator, nuclear safety consultant and president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

Erika Simpson, PhD, is an associate professor of international politics in the department of political science at Western University and president of the Canadian Peace Research Association.

Every so often, Canada arrives at a moment when foreign policy, ethics and national interest intersect. The pending $3.94-billion sale of Canadian uranium to India is one of those moments – though we seem inclined to move past it with minimal reflection.

India is not a routine customer. It is a nuclear-armed state that has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the agreement meant to anchor global efforts against the spread of nuclear weapons. In selling it uranium, Canada appears willing to extend to India the kinds of benefits normally reserved for states that accept international inspections on all nuclear facilities and abide by NPT treaty obligations. What, then, is the message this sends to the 93 countries that signed the NPT and continue to respect it?

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that one can remain outside that treaty system, develop nuclear weapons – initially with foreign technological assistance, including Canada’s – and still secure privileged access to trade in nuclear materials.

Supporters of the deal may note that uranium supplied by Cameco Corp. will be used for peaceful purposes. The fuel is destined for India’s civilian reactors, but supplying uranium for “peaceful” use frees up India’s limited domestic uranium supply for other purposes, including military ones.

There is also the question of plutonium.

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India possesses one of the world’s largest stockpiles of civilian plutonium, separated from spent reactor fuel. The designation of such plutonium as civilian rather than military offers limited reassurance, given how readily such material can be repurposed.

Analysts warn that if India chose to militarize this stockpile, its nuclear arsenal could surpass Pakistan’s, exceed Britain’s and approach China’s. Estimates diverge sharply: 2016 research from Pakistan’s Center for International Strategic Studies estimates India could produce 356–492 plutonium-based weapons; in a 2017 discussion paper, researcher Mansoor Ahmed puts the potential far higher, at up to 2,686.

The range reflects an often-overlooked possibility: that India could use civilian reactor-grade plutonium in its weapons. Doing so would require only a political decision. The risk is not hypothetical. It sits just outside the boundaries of our public policy discussion.

What is striking is how little of this appears in Canada’s public record. The focus on the proposed sale has been on export revenue and the prospect of advancing broader trade discussions. Few Canadians may recall that Canada supplied one of India’s first reactors – and that the plutonium used in India’s first nuclear weapons test came from that reactor.

Ignorance is not a sound basis for nuclear policy. And Canada seems content to discuss nuclear policy out of earshot, and out of context, whether that’s the sale of uranium to India or a plan to transport Canada’s own stock of plutonium-laden high-level radioactive waste to a proposed deep geological repository in northern Ontario.

It is true that Canada’s domestic radioactive waste challenge – couched in the language of environmental responsibility and intergenerational stewardship – is distinct from our unwittingly assisting in expanding India’s nuclear arsenal. Each warrants careful attention on its own terms.

But treating these conversations as entirely separate can obscure the broader picture. Once created, plutonium remains weapons-usable for tens of thousands of years.

Canada’s nuclear policy landscape has become layered and, at times, inconsistent. Federal officials often describe radioactive waste management as if it were a fully resolved engineering issue with no present or future proliferation concerns. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, at the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Nov. 23 presented uranium exports as if they existed in a geopolitical vacuum, offering only an economic and diplomatic upside.

Canada continues to insist that treaties matter, even as we deepen commercial ties with a state that has chosen to remain outside the NPT treaty system.

The waste problem and the proliferation problem differ in scale and consequence, but they share a common feature: both tend to be discussed out of earshot, if at all. If Canada is bound to sell uranium to a non-NPT nuclear weapons state, it should do so with full acknowledgment of the implications. And as we attempt to address the long-term management of our own radioactive waste legacy, we must confront that problem with clarity.

Avoiding unpleasant realities does not make Canada safer. It simply narrows the space for honest debate at a time when the stakes demand it.