Canada’s Atomic Wedge:The Rationale For Canada’s Renewed Nuclear Cooperation With India

This thesis intends to analyze why Canada signed the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.Despite a troubled history regarding nuclear cooperation between Canada and India,which reached rock bottom in 1974 when India detonated a nuclear bomb built using Canadian technology transferred to India for peaceful purposes.The Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement came into effect almost 40 years after the suspension of nuclear assistance to India from Canada.This new agreement has allowed Canada and India to resume their previously terminated nuclear cooperation.A study of foreign policy analysis,this thesis intents to explain the rationale and reasoning for Canada’s decision to sign the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.This thesis seeks to explain and understand why it took so long to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement between Canada and India,and ultimately,why did Canada decide to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with India,despite its continued reluctance to sign onto the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons? The hypothesis of this thesis states that Canada did not sign the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement for mere short term economic gain,but rather,that Canada signed the NCA in order to improve broader long term relations with India.The signing of the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement was a rational decision by Canada’s foreign policy decision makers.Using the rational actor model,this thesis analyzes the rationale of Canada’s Harper government in their decision to sign a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with India.This thesis argues that the Harper government set out clear cut goals,and that the signing of this bilateral agreement played a major part in achieving these goals.By signing the NCA Harper government to improve and broaden relations between Canada and India,and help further its broader goals of expanding Canadian trade and involvement in Asia.While there was certainly some risk involved with renewing nuclear cooperation with India,there was more to be lost by Canada were it to not renew nuclear cooperation with India.The signing of this nuclear agreement was symbolic of renewed trust and cooperation between Canada and India,as up until its signing,the nuclear issue was the most controversial,most unresolved issue,and most straining issue in Canada-India relations.Ultimately,the signing of the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation was truly pivotal,monumental step forward in Canada-India relations,and which had to be taken,in order to forget the troubled past,and move on to a new era of constructive,positive relations between Canada and India.Altogether,there are five chapters in this thesis-The First Chapter establishes the significance of the study,introduces the research question and the hypothesis,as well as giving a literature review,and overview of structure for this thesis.The first chapter also introduces the theoretical framework and methodologies used.The main theory utilized in this thesis is the Rational Actor Model.The Rational Actor Model accurately describes and analyzes the decision making process underwent by Canada in its decision to sign the NCA with India.This thesis illustrates that in accordance with the Rational Actor Model,the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper set clear cut goals in regards to improving relations with India,and decided to negotiate an agreement with India to help achieve those goals.The Harper governments choice to engage was value maximizing,as it was both a symbolic gesture and fundamentally rational choice to re-engage with India on the issue of nuclear cooperation.While certainly,Canada’s nuclear industry would have been in favour of renewed nuclear cooperation with India,The Harper government,a unitary actor,made a rational choice to pursue renewed nuclear cooperation with India,not because of influence from special interests,but rather to further the national interests of both Canada,and achieve its foreign policy goal of improving broader relations between the two states.The methods utilized in this thesis attempt to follow the methods used by Allison in his work,The Essence of Decision.The rational actor model will be utilized to analyze and explain the decision making process,and goal setting process,of the Canadian government under Stephen Harper in the process of their decision to sign the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.The Second Chapter focusses on the historical background of Canada’s nuclear industry,specifically on the important role that exporting nuclear materials and technologies plays in Canada’s nuclear industry.Moreover,the second chapter focusses on explaining the historical background of Canada and India’s original nuclear relations,and the events and reasons that led up to India developing nuclear weapons by utilizing Canadian,which resulted in the suspension and ultimate termination of all nuclear assistance and cooperation between Canada and India.Furthermore,this chapter explains how Canada reacted to India’s transgression,by changing its nuclear non proliferation policy in all future international nuclear relations between Canada and other states.Finally,this chapter explain how the path towards the resumption of nuclear cooperation between Canada and India became possible,as India became an ever rising power.The Third Chapter focusses on the main argument of the thesis,and is the longest chapter.This chapter focusses on explaining why Canada decided to negotiate and sign the Canada-Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with India,more than 35 years after India’s first nuclear test,and while India has continued to oppose signing onto the NPT or CTBT.This chapter will analyze the implementation of the agreement,analyze and what the resumption of nuclear cooperation means for both countries.The primary focus throughout this chapter will be to prove the hypothesis,by explaining how the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation agreement was used as a wedge by Canada to help meaningfully improve and broaden long terms relations with India,as part of Canada’s grand strategy.This chapter will look at how the NCA was used to help Canada achieve its foreign policy regarding India,explains how the signing of the NCA was the most significant,and most pivotal development in contemporary Canada-India relations to date.The mutual benefits of the NCA are analyzed and explained,as this agreement helps achieve shared national interests of both Canada and India;moreover,the agreement promotes macro economic stability.The Parliamentary debate surrounding the agreement will also be analyzed.Ultimately,this chapters serves to argue that Canada was rational in its decision to sign the NCA with India,as signing an NCA for renewed cooperation with India was the best option for Canada to improve its relations with India and achieve its foreign policy goals.The Fourth Chapter talks about safeguards put in place through the signing and implementation of the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.This chapter will analyze the actual wording of the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement,and what the agreement will mean for both countries in terms of their safety,environmental,nuclear waste management,and non proliferation concerns.Throughout,this chapter the roles of the IAEA,as well as Canadian and Indian Atomic regulators will be discussed in terms of enforcing non proliferation.The Final Chapter summarizes and conclude the thesis.The Future prospects for this deal and further nuclear cooperation and other areas of cooperation between Canada and India are discussed,as well,some recommendations for the current Trudeau government are put forward and discussed.Criticisms of the deal are also analyzed,and a conclusions made.