The prospect of the use of biological weapons (BW), whether by states, criminals or terrorists, fills all civilized people with horror and repugnance. The very idea of deliberately spreading disease through bacteria, viruses or toxins affecting humans, animals or plants is today rightly considered a taboo, and is condemned by international treaty and customary law.

We've long known the means to spread disease-and long had vast access to lethal agents. Over the past 80 years, in light of the broad advance of science and technology, the international community has taken important steps to prevent deliberate disease. Since 1925, the Geneva Protocol has prohibited the use of biological weapons. When it became clear that this was not enough, biological weapons were prohibited entirely through the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, better known as the BTWC. The BTWC, which was concluded in 1972 and entered into force in 1975, was the first global treaty to prohibit an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. It represents a universal norm, and is an important pillar of international peace and security.

Canada highly values the BTWC and is convinced that it fundamentally enhances global security. It would also value highly a legally binding instrument to enhance common confidence in the complete, faithful implementation of the Convention in all its aspects. Canada is committed to continuing to work within and to strengthen the BTWC in order to achieve our fundamental goal of enforcing and strengthening the prohibition against biological weapons.

National enforcement efforts-including export and import controls, licensing, domestic inspection, verification and policing-also complement and buttress the global ban on biological weapons. For its part, Canada is taking steps to strengthen its ability to ensure and enforce the prohibition against biological weapons, including through the introduction of a new Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Implementation Act (BTWCIA). While Canada already has in place a broad range of laws and processes through which it has implemented its obligations under the Convention, the BTWCIA would allow Canada to fulfill these obligations better. It would enable the establishment of a domestic compliance regime that could coordinate, through a responsible authority, the submission of declarations, facility inspections and other activities, many of which are already carried out under various existing regulations.

But even this groundbreaking legislation will not be enough to protect Canada and Canadians from the threat of biological weapons. In the age of intercontinental travel and global trade, it is not enough to have your own house in order. If your neighbour's roof catches fire, your house can also burn. The recent naturally occurring global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-which claimed hundreds of lives worldwide, including 41 in Canada-reminded us that disease knows no borders. It respects no political boundaries.

The terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001-including the deliberate dissemination of anthrax through contaminated letters-underscored the importance of a multinational response to the deliberate spread of disease. The attacks inspired G7 countries and Mexico to launch the Global Health Security Initiative (also known as the Ottawa Plan) aimed at improving international coordination against possible bio-terrorism. The 4th Ministerial Forum of the Global Health Security Initiative took place in Berlin earlier this month. At the forum, Canada reported on Exercise Global Mercury, a smallpox outbreak simulation exercise that it coordinated to evaluate health communications among participating governments, in response to the fictitious discovery of an outbreak of smallpox.

While the threat of biological terrorism demands that states increase their capacity, through initiatives such as the Ottawa Plan, to respond to biological incidents, equal focus must be placed on preventing the development, spread and use of biological weapons in the first place. In this regard, the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, launched at the G8 Summit in Kananaskis in June 2002, promises to make a critical contribution.

Though not identified as a specific priority area by leaders, biological weapons non-proliferation is an essential element of the Global Partnership. In the Kananaskis statement, leaders explicitly committed the G8 to prevent terrorists, or those that harbour them, inter alia, from acquiring or developing biological weapons and related materials, equipment and technology.

One of the Global Partnership's priority areas is the re-employment of former weapons scientists. In this regard, as announced by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien last May in St. Petersburg, Canada will be contributing up to $18 million per year to the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow to provide former weapons scientists, including bioweaponeers, with opportunities to redirect their talents to peaceful purposes. Canada, which officially acceded to the ISTC on October 20, intends to make the biological area a priority for Canadian funding.

It should also be noted that the Global Partnership's principles include a number of commitments that promise to pay valuable BW non-proliferation dividends. These include the following commitments:

to promote the adoption, universalization, full implementation and strengthening of multilateral treaties, including the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention;
to develop and maintain appropriate effective measures to account for and secure biological items in production, use, storage and domestic and international transport and to provide assistance to states lacking sufficient resources to account for and secure these items; and
to develop and maintain appropriate effective physical protection measures applied to facilities that house such items, including defence in depth, and to provide assistance to states lacking sufficient resources to protect their facilities.

These principles were subsequently endorsed unanimously by the UN General Assembly.

The risk of the proliferation of biological weapons and the international community's inability to date to develop agreed measures to address the challenges of compliance and verification are of serious concern to Canada. As the assembly here today makes clear, working together-in ways that engage and include various governments, communities and people-is the only way to meet the diverse challenges at hand. Common purpose, common resolve, resolute commitment to action and real partnership are required if we are to achieve our common goal of ridding the world forever of the scourge of biological weapons.