By Amy Nickerson
In the early-morning hours of January 14, a helicopter carrying a small amount of plutonium flew above the Ottawa area despite votes by Nepean City Council, along with others from across the province, that ban-ned the shipment through their towns.
The helicopter touched down in Chalk River, a community located north-west of Ottawa, where the plutonium was be tested in a nuclear reactor. The shipment will be followed by another sample arriving from Russia in the spring. If the tests are successful, more plutonium will be sent to Chalk River as part of an international effort to dismantle nuclear weapons around the world.
For four years, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) laid careful plans to transport plutonium from US nuclear warheads into Canada for testing by truck. AECL, along with the federal government tried to pacify the public through presentations and public meetings throughout the last few months. They argued the plutonium was “safe enough to hold in your hands.”
Despite these reassurances, public opposition grew. In order to avoid possible demonstrations along the shipping route, AECL changed its plans at the last minute and flew the plutonium to Chalk River. Unbelievably, the federal government approved the plan to the airlift the plutonium from Sault Ste. Marie to Chalk River even though citizens were not informed of this change until the helicopters had already flown over their sleeping heads. The Canadian government prides itself on being one of the most democratic in the world. Yet, to be a true democracy, the public must be made aware of the government’s activities and be given a say in decision-making processes. The plutonium shipment was clouded in secrecy and mocked the democratic rights of those who opposed it.
“It is outrageous that the Chretien government has allowed plutonium to be flown over communities who have expressed their opposition to the plan,” says Kristen Ostling, national co-or-dinator of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout. “The decision flies in the face of the democratic process and the right of Canadians to have input into major policy directions.”
Ostling says she opposed the shipment because she thinks the welfare of Canadians would have been at risk if an accident had occurred during transport or during the testing process.
She says the Canadian government should send specialists to Russia to help them deal with their plutonium, rather than risk the danger of transporting the nuclear material.
Environmental groups and politicians opposed the plutonium shipment because they argued that it unnecessarily put the safety of innocent Ontar-ians at risk.
Ostling says she fears that if an accident had occurred during transport, citizens would be exposed to harmful levels of radiation that could cause cancer and birth defects.
“The federal government has betrayed the people of Northern Ontario by ignoring their concerns and sneaking a highly dangerous shipment of weapons-grade plutonium through their communities,” says NDP environment critic, Peter Mancini. “The plan to ship by air was never presented to the public or community leaders, nor were contingency plans for a possible accident.”
Mancini says that by ignoring public opposition to the plutonium shipment, the federal government demonstrated that it has its own agenda on the nuclear industry regardless of public opposition.
“The government has demonstrated a blatant disregard for the concerns and safety of Canadians,” says Man-cini.
The public concern may have some validity since the shipment of weapons-grade plutonium by air is banned in the United States.
“The nuclear industry has always been surrounded in secrecy and must have something to hide,” says Ostling. “They want to hide from a democratic process and hide from massive public opposition.”
Larry Shewchuk, spokesperson for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. says the decision to airlift the plutonium was made because the public preferred this method instead of land transport.
“Virtually everyone said to us if this is so safe to be on the road why don’t you fly it,” he says. “Putting it in the air didn’t make it safer, or less dangerous, it was just a decision.”
Shewchuk says he toured the land route from Sault Ste. Marie to Chalk River and interviewed residents about the proposed shipment. He says that most people expressed no opposition to the plan once they were informed that there was “no safety risk.”
Only certain officials at AECL, Transport Canada, the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada and a handful of police and firefighting teams knew about the last-minute change to the shipment. Shewchuk says officials in the towns were informed of the change on a “need-to-know basis”.
Yet, it appears government officials and environmental groups did not “need-to-know,” since they were not informed of the shipment until it was too late.
In putting the concerns of its subsidized industries above the demands of the public, the government is prior-itizing fiscal gain at the expense of the democratic rights of those citizens.
The last-minute decision to fly the plutonium over much of Ontario demonstrates that the government will go around, and literally over, public opposition in order to get what it wants.