Canada Calls Its Reactors Peaceful. It’s Not So Simple

Nov. 28, 2025

A venerable anti-nuclear war group says Carney’s SMR funding could fuel a new arms race.

With the planet running a carbon-induced fever and desperate to replace fossil fuels, Canada is one of the countries turning to nuclear energy.

Not everyone is pleased. That includes a 45-year-old organization known as the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

IPPNW Canada has written a passionate letter to Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre in response to the recent federal decision to fund experimental small nuclear reactors in concert with the province of Ontario. The project falls under the umbrella of the fast-track major nation-building projects referred to the newly created Major Projects Office for review.

The IPPNW wrote: “We will not dwell on the economic and environmental implications of nuclear technologies that are unproven, or the lack of adequate support for alternatives. Our focus is on the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the inadequacy of the current regulatory framework to protect public health.”

The IPPNW, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for its advocacy, argues that a civilian nuclear industry provides the required scientific capacity for nuclear weapons production. “It provides material and absorbs the weapons’ waste stream,” the group wrote.

Nuclear waste is a subject that does not get much coverage. It should. The waste will remain deadly to humans for at least 10,000 years, no matter where it is disposed of. Unbelievably, it was once dumped in the ocean. Thankfully, international treaties have put an end to that obscene practice. Nor is burying it a viable option. How do you warn people about a nuclear burial site that will remain toxic to humans for 300 generations into the future?

How Canada helped spread nuclear weapons

The IPPNW, which now includes medical groups from 63 countries, is entitled to its skepticism about the hasty adoption of nuclear energy. After all, Canada has exported the nuclear technology that enabled other countries to develop nuclear weapons.

This country gave India the CIRUS nuclear reactor in 1956. It was intended for peaceful purposes; instead, it was used to produce the plutonium for India’s first atomic bomb, which was detonated in 1974.

In response to the perceived threat, Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998.

It should also be remembered that Canada’s initial foray into the nuclear age was to support the production of nuclear weapons. Uranium ore from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories was refined in Port Hope, Ontario. It was then shipped to the Manhattan Project, where it was used to make the world’s first atomic bombs.

That ore was transported in barges down the Great Bear River in 100-pound cloth bags, picked up at the rapids by truck and then loaded onto other boats. No one was told about the risk of exposure to uranium ore, or about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bags were loaded and unloaded on the backs of Sahtúot’ine ore carriers, Dene people who suffered the health consequences.

The IPPNW argues that despite Canada promoting itself as a proponent of the peaceful use of nuclear technology, “the reality is that civilian and military nuclear use are inextricably intertwined.” The expansion of nuclear power will create a market for high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, which will increase the risk of diversion, and increase the potential for weapons production.

There are wider public health implications from the expansion of nuclear power. It is ironic that so many politicians are now promoting nuclear as “clean energy” with the capacity to mitigate the damage done to the planet by fossil fuels. Here is the question: Will that thinking simply replace carbon pollution with something even worse?

The IPPNW urges, “in the strongest terms, that the Public Health Agency of Canada be directed to assess the public health implications of this expansion.”

A fast-tracked ‘generational investment’

The concerns of IPPNW are all the more urgent because that expansion is moving quickly. In part, it is driven by Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs, a trade war that has induced Canada to aggressively expand energy production for sale on the world market. The government wants to make Canada an energy superpower, and nuclear plays a big role in that plan.

The federal government and the province of Ontario have announced that they will spend $3 billion on a mini nuclear power plant next to the Darlington power plant, calling it the Darlington New Nuclear Project. Based on GE Hitachi’s technology, the BWRX-300 will be Canada’s first small modular reactor, or SMR, and the first in the G7. Four in total are planned for the site.

Carney said the new type of reactor was “a generational investment, an expenditure that will extend Canada’s world leadership in clean energy.”

The initial SMR will cost an estimated $7.7 billion, and the total for the project will be $20.9 billion. The four SMRs will produce enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes when completed. Beyond generating electricity, there is the potential for their use in off-grid situations, or for industrial applications like artificial intelligence.

And there is more in the works. The Ontario government and Ontario Power Generation are collaborating with power companies in Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, as they work toward building SMRs in their provinces. The potential to help build SMRs around the world is certainly there.

In October, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston shuffled his cabinet and announced he would take over the energy department. That is in addition to his existing roles as minister of intergovernmental affairs and minister of trade.

Two days later, the Ontario minister of energy and mines, Stephen Lecce, joined Nova Scotia’s premier and minister of energy in Halifax to sign a landmark agreement to collaborate on the development of SMRs. The government announced that this would help drive Nova Scotia’s clean energy transition “while reinforcing Canada’s position as a world leader in cutting-edge nuclear innovation.”

The partners vowed to collaborate with other provinces and territories to accelerate SMR adoption countrywide. As Lecce grandly declared, “The world is watching Ontario as we lead the largest expansion of nuclear energy on the continent and build the G7’s first small nuclear reactor.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was equally bullish. He said the SMR project that so concerns the IPPNW will make Ontario’s economy more competitive, resilient and self-reliant in the face of Trump’s tariffs. It will also create 18,000 jobs during construction and will help relieve some economic uncertainty.

Canada has not put all of its nuclear eggs in one basket with its commitment to SMRs. Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, Canadian companies that own U.S. reactor vendor Westinghouse, recently signed an agreement with the U.S. government to spur construction of as many as eight large nuclear reactors. What is described as a “binding term sheet” outlines a deal worth $80 billion. The reactors would be built on U.S. soil and are intended to power data centres and AI capacity.

Canada rebuffed nuclear weapons treaty

Interestingly, Canada is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which went into force on Jan. 22, 2021. Sixty-nine countries did not vote, including all of the nuclear weapons states and all NATO members except the Netherlands.

In its final words to the government, the IPPNW makes clear that it believes Canada’s stance on the expanded use of nuclear technology is not good enough. The current policy doesn’t see the dangerous connection between the proliferation of nuclear technology and the potential for unimaginable disaster if it is weaponized.

“In closing, we highlight our concern that the use of nuclear weapons, whether deliberate or accidental, would create a world that becomes unlivable. More than half the nations of the world support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The only way that we can delink nuclear power from nuclear weapons is to ban them completely.

“Canada has not supported the TPNW.

“If Canada is serious about reducing the threat of nuclear power to our collective health, it must support this treaty and work effectively towards nuclear disarmament. Current efforts fall far short of what is necessary.

“Otherwise, Canada’s lack of caution in the support of nuclear expansion increases the risk that these civilization-ending weapons will be used.”

[Top photo: Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, announces $3 billion in funding for a new kind of nuclear reactor with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in Ontario on Oct. 23. Photo by Laura Proctor, the Canadian Press.]