4 - Wednesday, June 24, 1987 - North Shore News

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Hunter ® strictly personal ®

IT IS nat every day that wimpy old Canada decides to blow $182 billion on military hardware, and a considerable wad of that on nuclear submarines, yet.

1 say ‘‘considerable wad’’, as opposed to giving you a figure, because there is already plenty of controversy over just how much those subs would really cost.

The Tories say $7.5 billion, but a British expert says the price would be at least $12 billion, and that’s in 1987 dollars.

The very first question 1 have is: Who gets the commission for this f-a-a-a-ntastic arms deal?

Previous Canadian international dealings abroad, when they in- volved anything nuclear, have always been fraught with corrup- tion and bribery.

I refer to the sale of CANDU reactors.

In November 1976, the auditor-general reported that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had paid some $15.4 million to United Development Inc., of Tel Aviv, a worldwide sales corpora- tion, and $2.4 million to a firm called Intercontinental Genera} Trading Establishment of Liechtenstein, to facilitate interna- tional sales of CANDU reactors.

More than $10 million of this money was never ‘‘adequately ac-

counted for’’. The payments went

_to Argentine and South Korean

Officials in the form of bribes to persuade them to buy Canadian.

Bingo! Two reactor sales!

Some of this money, in case you’re interested, landed in the hands of such unsavory characters as a member of the former Argen- tine military junta and one of the top bosses of a massive mafia-like criminal syndicate in that country.

We made the sale, but at the price of abandoning scruples, for openers. In fact, government agencies have behaved like crimi- nals as they attempted to flog our nuclear reactors abroad. If they’d behaved the same way at home, they’d have been jailed.

Another sad example:

When Canada and France slip- ped into bed together in a cartel arrangement in 1972 to drive up the price of uranium from $9.50 a pound to $41.50 a pound, the Ca- nadian government forced Gulf \4inerals Canada, a subsidiary of Gulf Oil Corp. of the US., to par- ticipate, thereby violating American antitrust legislation.

It was only thanks to a congres-

sional inquiry that the news came out that those slippery Canucks were making under-the-table deals to drive up the price of their raw uranium.

The president of Uranium Canada Ltd. at the time the cartel was set up was Jack Austin, who was later rewarded with a senate appointment.

So if it wasn’t bribery we were involved in when it came to pushing nukes, it was price-fixing.

You just don’t get involved in nuclear politics and keep your hands clean.

Lucky enough if you can keep them free from radiation.

Talk about supping with the devil!

It is supremely ironic that these subs run on enriched uranium, which is not produced in Canada, so we will not only have to buy our submarine designs from either France or Britain, using an American-style reactor, but we will have to buy fuel at a price vastly greater than it used to be because of our own successful price-fixing tricks in the past.

By the way, you might remember Jack Austin’s uranium cartel the next time you ask yourself how the Americans can be so distrustful about us honest, hard-working little Canucks.

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The truth is, they don’t put it past us to be scheming and ploi- ting. They’ve seen how we operate before.

When the history books are written, and Chernoby! is pointed to as a major turning-point in hu- manity’s education about the dangers of nuclear power, the his- torians might add a footnote ex- pressing their astonishment to discover that, against the general trend of smartening up, Canada — which had wisely abstained until then — suddenly discovered it wanted to start playing with nu- clear military toys.

Does Warren Beatty have a death wish?

Let us suppose that a handful of conventionally-armed Canadian nuclear submarines does try to

“choke off” the Soviet sub fleet in the Arctic during a war.

First, they wouldn’t have @ chance against similar craft with nuclear weapons. The problem is that even as just a target, our subs would be dangerous. Upon being hit, they’d turn into atomic explo- sions themselves.

Great! There goes the Arctic — destroyed by Canadian nuclear submarines being destroyed.

If anything, Canada should be working to denuclearize the Arctic, arguing in every possible interna- tional forum for the withdrawal of all nuclear-powered or armed craft of any kind from the sensitive Arc- tic environment.

Instead, we’re going to muscle in there, increasing the risk of acci- dent.

Thanks?’

The new 78-inch diameter watermain on Capilano Road in North Vancouver District is now in service and ready for the peak summer water demand.

A well deserved thank you to the residents, motorists

and businessmen affected by the work.

Your patience and co-operation during the construction § period greatly contributed to the success of this difficult. §

‘project.

Many thanks,

Greater Vancouver Regional District 4330 Kingsway . Burnaby, B.C. V5H 4G8

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