4 - Sunday, January 21, 1990 - North Shore News A FURTHER note on Canada’s nuclear program, which wraps itself not only in the flag but, lately, has adopted a propaganda stance that puts nukes forward as being the environmentally-friendly option in terms of our cnergy future. Well, Eastern Canada’s, anyway. A couple of months ago, Dr. Paul D. Schofield, the chairman of the Canadian Nuclear Association, applauded federal Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard’s en- dorsement of nuclear power as a “positive stance’’ in terms of ad- dressing environmental concerns. Every environmental organiza- tion in the country jumped all over Bouchard for his statement, in which he said the nuclear option should be favorably reconsidered due to the looming greenhouse ef- fect crisis, but c'est Ja vie. En- vironmentalists are notoriously an- ti-nuke for some odd reason. Nuclear power can contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, said Dr. Schofield. “Nuclear and hydroelectric plants don’t emit greenhouse gases or acid gases and can supplement energy efficiency measures which, taken alone, would fall short of meeting’’ the 20 per cent carbon dioxide reduction levels proposed by the 1988 Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere for the year 2000. Do you believe this man? Should you? Nobody can blame the army of flacks working for the nuclear in- dustry for leaping on the en- vironmental bandwagon — after all, every other industry is doing it. If I was paid by them to find slick new ways to represent radioactive wastes, the deadliest contaminant known to humanity, as being something akin to motherhood, would harp on the CO2 reduction angle too. Play what cards you can, All this highly-paid prepaganda activity, alas, has suffered a severe setback with the revelations that some 14,000 slave laborers were being used in Romania to build a Canadian nuclear facility. The Romania nuclear Gulag in- volved — still involves — the con- struction of five CANDU reactors. It represented one of the few overseas sales of Canadian nuclear technology to be achieved in the last decade. The other clients were dictatorships in Argentina and North Korea, Canadu’s track record on the export of such technology is blighted, to say the least. We built reactors for India, which proceeded, despite agree- ments, to use the facilities to build its own atomic bomb. After that fiasco, Canada insisted on ‘‘iron- clad’” guarantees in future deals. How you get such guarantees when you are doing business with YOUR BEST ASSURANCE FOR FAST COMPREHENSIVE REAL ESTATE SERVICE SETHE RAMS OR ike Nakayama Bus: 922-6166 Res: 984-7574 FA MONTREAL TRUST REAL ESTATE dictatorships is a mystery. To be generous, it might be that Canada’s nuclear profession, con- sisting mostly of engineers, is in- credibly naive. But that isn’t supposed to be the case over at External Affairs, the ministry run by Joe Clark, avowed foe of apartheid in South Africa. While Joe laments the plight of black South Africans, he somehow wasn't concerned about conscripts working on the CANDU facility in Cernavoda, 100 miles east of Bucharest. CANDU president Donald Lawson claims he had no evidence of slave labor being used at the site — which is rather amazing, since Canada has diplomats in Romania, and it was ‘‘common knowledge,’”* according to scores of Romanian refugees. As well, the New York-based Hungarian Human Rights Federa- tion has compiled extensive evi- dence showing that the regime of ceposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu conscripted thousands of men, mostly ethnic Hungarians, to work at the CANDU site under “‘virtual slave conditions." Ceausescu's former spy chief, Lt.-Gen. lon Mihai Pacepa, defected to the West several years ago, and was not only de-briefed, but wrote a hair-raising book about conditions in Romania. Surely someone in External Affairs at least glanced at it. The fact is that 14,000 Roma- nian men were uprooted from their homes after being drafted into the army and marched onto the CANDU site, where they were Stewarts Antiques. 4391 Main:St., Van: _ 872 1155 forced to work terrble hours, liv- ing in filthy. improperly-heated conditions. Ceausescu was so hell-bent on getting the reactors built chat he fired workers en masse because they couldn't meet his deadlines, and replaced them with draftees. The most revealing comment on the situatien comes from Irwin Ruminel, the Canadian construe- tion boss at the site, who could not possibly have failed to notice what was going on. First. he claimed: “1 didn't see anything like that.” But then he went on to say that the overthrow of Ceausescu would help ensure the Canadian reactors ure built safely because competent labor could now be brought in, So it wasn’t competent before? And if it wasn’t, why? Transparent lies by CANDU of- ficials aside, the question here is one of credibility. If Canada’s nu- clear industry is incapable of notic- ing 14,000 slaves at work under its thumb, as it plods on hand in mailed glove with possibly the most totalitarian Communist regime in the world, what does that say about the perceptual capacities of our nuclear planners? What does it say about their morality? A lot. It tells that their priorities aren't human rights, for sure. 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