Newsworthy
By Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg | 1991-09-01 12:00:00
Help Pass Bill C-204 For Nuclear Phaseout
By Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg
Did you know last year a billion dollars of your taxes went to bail out the nuclear industry for the next seven years?
This Private Members' Bill is exciting, important and needs your immediate support. If passed, Bill C-204 will prohibit for 50 years the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) from issuing new licences. This will lead to a gradual phasing out of the industry.
The house of Commons will vote on this bill during the next session of Parliament. Because it is a private members bill, M.P.s do not have to follow their party's line. And even if your M.P. is not now convinced of the merits of energy efficiency and a safe, least cost and renewable energy strategy, all she or he will be voting for at this stage is the right to hold committee hearings. Only by this means will independent witnesses with knowledge in all aspects of these issues be able to testify for the public record. This is the opportunity often proposed by the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) and other environmental groups over the last 15 years.
- Dr. Tom Perry, Sr., of Vancouver died on June 7 at the age of 74. One of the founders of the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and a member of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Dr. Perry received the first Citizen's Peace Award last year. He became interested in peace when hew as with the first Allied troops to enter Buchenwald concentration camp. He was concerned about atmospheric bomb testing and served on Vancouver's peace committee. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford and a graduate of Harvard Medical School be spoke out against racism in the profession and was forced out of practice in Los Angeles. he worked with Linus Pauling in California before coming to UBC in 1962. Alderman Libby Davies said "He's one of the people who has to be credited with alerting the public to the dangers of nuclear warfare."
International News
- Isabelle George writes that the Department of External Affairs and International Trade will begin a comprehensive public parliamentary study of the arms export business, the defence production industry and conversion in the fall. A copy of her paper which she is submitting is available from her at Box 175, Arcola, Sask., S0C 0G0.
- In Czechoslovakia an art student painted a war surplus tank pink as a sign of liberation. He was charged with disturbing the public order and the tank was painted green. Then members of parliament repainted it pink to protest the use of police powers.
- The World Conference on Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, August 1-10, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had as its main theme 'Action for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.' Nuclear-free local governments in Japan number 1,546. Their fifth Peace Wave will be held October 24-26, 1991. A case is being launched to sue the U.S. government under the national Environmental Policy Act to challenge the replacement of the USS Midway with the USS Independence ship in Yokosuka harbour. Sea-launched cruise missile warships went to the Persian Gulf War from Japan.
- In June Kenneth D. Suter, Executive Director of the Australian National Goals and Directions Movement, launched a Waging Peace Proposal which argues for the ratification of the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty by the United States. Among the reasons he gives is that the South Pacific is regarded by both superpowers as of low strategic significance. Most South Pacific nations have either renounced nuclear weapons or do not have the capacity to develop them and signing the treaty would reduce anti-American sentiment in the region.
Ooops! Sorry Excuse Me
Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard formally apologized for France's violation of New Zealand's sovereignty and the act of war against Greenpeace's ship Rainbow Warrior. A week later, in May, France resumed nuclear testing in the South Pacific with three blasts which New Zealand protested.
- The U.S. Strategic Defence Initiative program would like to test a rocket powered by a nuclear reactor over the Antarctic near New Zealand according to a document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists.
- The U.S. boycotted a symposium on the environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing held in Ottawa in April by the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament. Canada, the USSR, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark sent scientists to the two-day meeting. The symposium was in response to the decision of the USSR to move all tests to the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Barents Sea. When the agenda was given as including a comparison of U.S. and USSR testing and sharing of the environmental effects the Department of Energy barred U.S. government personnel connected with the test program from taking part. The Soviet delegation released a great deal of information on how they conduct their tests and try to contain the effects. The successful symposium concluded that prevention of 'venting' has improved but some leakage is inevitable and effects on the fragile Arctic could be bad.