The Atomic Dance
Stephane Dion is finally making a serious effort to get out in front on some serious issues. For one thing, he has objected to Canadian participation in George Bush’s scheme to form a so-called Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
That’s a fancy name for dumping America’s nuclear waste on others.
I don’t believe in using expletives in my blogs and so I have deleted them here in my final edit. One of the more idiotic ideas to come along since the invasion of Iraq is the unbelievable one of a proposed American joke…pardon me, America…I should say a "Bush joke". But of course it’s not a joke. Bush wants Canada and a bunch of other countries to climb on board a train to no good destination.
The American government is up to its proverbial (expletive deleted) in nuclear waste. As I said at the outset, I don’t normally use profanity; but this (expletive deleted) proposal burns my own (expletive deleted)"real bad", as Bush might say.
The idea…being Bushed is called "The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership".
This (expletive deleted) partnership idea will force all countries, which have exported uranium abroad, or sold reactors abroad, to take back the waste produced by the importing countries. It has to be the craziest, stupidest, most insanely idiotic idea since God supposedly used a man’s rib to create the female gender. It’s beyond insane.
Just picture the scene. Ships and airplanes crisscross the oceans and skies of this planet carrying deadly cargoes of lethal radioactive waste.
Even unemployed suicide bombers might balk at the idea…like what’s the point they might ask.
If Bush
persuades the 2 (expletive deleted) H-Men, 
S. Harper and 
J Howard to sign this proposal into effect, it may well mean that all that nuclear waste from all those bombs built by all those (expletive deleted)’s we sold uranium and plutonium to, will come floating back to our doorstep.
Ah, you say, but the Americans have special planes that can carry this stuff and even if they crash, no danger will be felt by the people they crash on. Yeah right!
Ah, you say- but we are culpable – because we sold these morons the radioactive (expletive deleted) in the first place, so we deserve to suffer these dire consequences.
If this were not such a tragic and stupid situation, it would be fodder for late night comedy shows. But it’s real, folks. These guys are serious. They don’t give a (expletive deleted) about the rest of us.
Time to rise up
What’s got you so hot and bothered about this, Jim?
This could be an opportunity for Canada to lead, in a very Canadian way. Somebody has to take the high moral ground on this global nuclear waste issue and if the international funding and leverage is right, we could prove ourselves to be what we are, smart, innovative, humanitarian, responsible.
It would also close out something which bothered me from my earliest years as a nuclear worker. The India Candu project was already under way when I joined the industry in the seventies, then came the projects in Cernavoda in Rumania and Wolsung in South Korea.
I remember thinking, it’s great to create pay-packets for AECL and related Canadians in a hi-tech industry.. but are we taking responsibility for what these clients might do with it?
And in later years there was the proposal for MOX technology at the Bruce to “burn” Russian nuclear warheads, there were “Swords to Ploughshares” T-shirts going around.
If we’re going to freeze about everything on the planet because Wee Bushie told us terrorists are everywhere, we become part of the problem.
We already truck highly radioactive stuff from the Bruce to the TRF (Tritium Reduction Facility) at Darlington. There was a bit of a flap when that came on the horizon twenty years ago, but now it’s normal.
Shouldn’t we do that either?
OMG! We should not be moving any of this stuff anywhere!