Trevor Smith was the Senior Program Manager for the chemical weapons destruction program at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada from 2002 to 2006.

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A Counter-Terrorism Project - Duration 2:25

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Transcription:

A Counter-Terrorism Project

I am the senior program manager for both the chemical weapons destruction area and for our biological non-proliferation program.

We work in very close partnership here with the Russian Federation, all of our partners: Colonel Serbin who we have heard from already, General Kholstov, who is responsible for the entire chemical weapons destruction program, and other colleagues in the Federal Directorate and Federal Agency for Industry. We also work in very close partnership with the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, which is in fact implementing our project here at Shchuch’ye through its Counter-Proliferation Assistance Program to Russia. That is run out of the Ministry of Defence both in London and at Porton Down.

The really interesting thing about this building, and what is quite unique from all our other projects that we have in the chemical weapons destruction area, is this is the one place where Canada and Russia are working closely in partnership. Our other projects—the railway, the local public address system, things like that—we are doing largely on our own. Here, though, it really is a joint effort, in that the Russians have built the majority of the superstructure around here, all of it in fact; and they are leaving it up to us and a couple of other countries, the United Kingdom in particular, to secure most of the equipment that will subsequently be installed in the building by the Russians.

One of the most satisfying things about this, as someone who has worked in arms control matters for quite some time and has spent a lot of time working on treaties and non-proliferation pledges, is that this is truly somewhere where you can see swords being turned into ploughshares. This is an actual destruction process where some of the world’s most dangerous nerve agents will be destroyed.

We should never forget that this is first and foremost a counterterrorism program and that we are trying to keep very, very dangerous munitions out of the hands of people who would have no hesitation using them against my family and yours. I think that is a very important point for Canadians to bear in mind. We are not doing this for Russia; we are doing this in partnership with Russia for all of our good. The nerve agent that is stored here—and there is 5,400 tonnes of it—some of it, a single drop on your skin is a lethal dose. So we should make no mistake about the importance of what we are doing here, and truly what an enormous contribution this will make to international and global security.