DOUGLAS TINDAL

August 7, 2008

Brantford, Ont. — In view of Tony Clement’s embarrassing performance in Mexico, John Baird’s embarrassing performance in Bali and Stephen Harper’s embarrassing performance practically everywhere, I have a modest proposal for harm reduction.

Well put, dad.

I asked Elizabeth if I could share the following email with you, which I received from her just an hour before she arrived at Union Station. (So from what I can tell, she wrote this off the top of her head on the train.) It represents what is possibly the most comprehensive and damning overview of what’s going largely unreported and why it’s so disastrous not only for our safety, but for our democracy.

We have taken very clear positions on this issue. First, you need to know we have done our homework. Here’s a crash course in the fiasco.

1) The NRU reactor at Chalk River is over 50 years old. It is operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, a Crown Corporation. Closing for even routine maintenance should not have occurred without a contingency plan, alerting the other manufacturers of medical radio-isotopes that they should be prepared to boost production.

2) The reactor closed on November 18 for routine maintenance without any contingency plan. Then the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, discovered that the reactor was operating illegally, having ignored license requirements for emergency back-ups for additional pumps. CNSC told AECL they could not re-open until they met license requirements. AECL still did not alert the government that it needed to make contingency plans. Why not? I speculate here, but MDS-Nordion is the “for profit” operation that was once part of AECL. I think that Nordion and AECL did not want to have reduced profits and a loss of market share. No one informed the Minister of Health of a looming crisis until December 5. For reasons of profit and market they gambled on holding Canadian patients hostage to avoid meeting the regulatory requirements. They won. The President of the CNSC lost.

3) Chalk River’s NRU reactor makes Molybdenum 99. It makes about 40% of the world’s supply. The other 60% comes from facilities in Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, France and Germany. The isotope used in diagnosis is technetium-99m (t-99m), which is derived from the Molybdenum 99. While the t99-m has a very very short half life, 66 hours 6 hours, the Moly 99 lasts much longer and could have been stockpiled. A few ounces of M 99 provides enough t 99m for thousands of treatments and diagnostic tests.

4) AECL mismanagement: Everyone has known the NRU reactor will have to close eventually. It is way past its “best-before” date. AECL promised to have two reactors up and running dedicated exclusively to making radio-isotopes. That was more than ten years ago. Maple 1 and 2 are pretty much finished at Chalk River. We know they were budgeted at $140 million. They are way over budget and they cannot be opened. AECL cannot figure out what is wrong, They were supposed to have a “negative power coefficient of reactivity (PCR)” — meaning that the nuclear reaction in the core was supposed to slow down as power increased. This is a safety feature. Instead of slowing down, the reaction speeds up. The handling of this project is one of the items the Auditor General reported as a deficiency in her fall report to government, released this week.

5) How safe is safe enough? The NRU reactor, like all nuclear installations, has a very small risk of a very catastrophic accident. That is why they have back up systems. There is a current dispute between AECL, CNSC and Lunn — and it is much larger than the NRU issue. The former President of CNSC is chairing some international nuclear safety committees. The CNSC communicated to AECL that if it plans to build any new reactors, they must meet international safety standards. AECL has protested that is unnecessary. Lunn takes AECL’s side. (After all Harper and company want nuclear reactors to speed up exploitation of the tar sands….)

The Green Party does not accept that the regulator should have been over-ridden. This, plus removing Keen as President, has set a very dangerous precedent. Now the nuclear industry knows that if it is operating illegally and cutting corners, the Harper government will rush to their defence and shoot the messenger. The emergency legislation passed did NOT have any independent expert advice. I am not referring to the fact one expert was chair of a Conservative riding association. The lack of independence is that both witnesses to Parliament had long-standing ties to AECL. We believe the other political parties were too scared of angry cancer patients to be capable of thinking clearly.

Bottom line: WHAT WOULD WE HAVE DONE IF WE’D BEEN IN THE HOUSE? WHAT ARE WE DEMANDING NOW?

1) WHAT WOULD WE HAVE DONE IF WE’D BEEN IN THE HOUSE? The Opposition Parties should have contacted every manufacturer of Moly 99 around the world to ascertain whether they could meet demand, and over what time frame. ONLY if it was clear (which it is still not clear to us) there was no way to keep supplies of Moly 99 at acceptable levels, should the bill to re-open the NRU have gone ahead. We would have insisted on re-writing Lunn’s emergency Bill to instruct CNSC to allow the reactor to open on a temporary license, with all safety issues over-seen by CNSC. The bill, as passed, puts AECL in charge of its own operation. An impossible and dangerous precedent of nuclear fox watching over radioactive chicken coop.

2) WHAT ARE WE DEMANDING NOW?

We are demanding a full public inquiry. There has never been a public review of AECL. One was promised by the Joe Clark government, but the government fell before it could take place. Billions of dollars in subsidies have gone to AECL with nearly zero accountability.

We are demanding Lunn’s resignation. His interference with a quasi-judicial regulator is a firing offence. The Harper government does not understand the rule of law.

We are exploring whether the conflict of interest between AECL being within Natural Resources would be reduced by placing nuke issues in Environment Canada… this is a position being taken by some prominent NGOs…

Elizabeth

As we discussed the contents of this email, we listened to an interview with Dr. Tom Perry, a Professor at the University of British Columbia and a physician at the Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, who struggled to understand how any lives could have been threatened as the Conservative government has claimed. During the whole time Chalk River was down, he and his colleagues failed to notice any health crisis.

In other words, there’s much more going on here than we’re aware of. We need an inquiry. Thank goodness we have in Elizabeth May the only party leader with the courage and credibility to press for the truth.

On Tuesday, our elected Parliamentarians celebrated the occasion a day early. In an emergency late-night session, they decided that the 50-year-old nuclear reactor at Chalk River, which had been shut down after it was discovered that it was operating in violation of its conditions of license and in the absence of required safeguards, should be restarted. They did this against the advice of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, an “independent federal government agency that regulates the use of nuclear energy and material to protect health, safety, security and the environment.”

Linda Keen, the head of the CNSC, was called to testify at the late-night session, where she said that “the government didn’t consult with the CNSC about the bill and, earlier Tuesday, removed the commission’s legal counsel so that it couldn’t dispute the legislation.” The safety watchdog’s director general said that the reactor was missing a “key upgrade” that is “key to nuclear safety” and is required to make sure that “the core doesn’t melt down.” The legislation to restart the reactor suspended the authority of the CNSC and turned the facility over to the authority of AECL, the same organization that presided over the previous Chalk River meltdown.

With that decision, Canada became “the only nation operating nuclear reactors ­ other than renegade Iran ­ where the fox has been put in charge of the henhouse.”

Every single elected party supported this decision. Every single one.

And, in a town notorious for taking years to pass even mundane legislation, this bill was rushed through both the lower and upper houses before most Canadians even realized what was going on. Senator Elane McCoy writes of the decision, “what it boils down to is this: we’re taking a gamble that no accidents will happen in the short term…let’s hope the gamble pays off.”

At least Senator McCoy understands that much. Our prime minister, who made a loathsome attempt to suggest that the nuclear safety experts at the CNSC weren’t competent simply because some of them had been appointed by a previous government of a different colour, has somehow deemed himself capable of assuring this nation that “there will be no nuclear accident.” I wonder if any of his aids pulled him aside afterwards to tell him what the word “accident” means.

Now, regardless of what you think of this decision, at least three burning questions remain. One, next time there’s a question of safety at a nuclear power plant, will the CNSC have the authority to speak out, or have they been completely undermined? Two, given the dismal reliability record of most nuclear reactors, as well as the age of the Chalk River reactor, how is it possible that the government didn’t have a plan for this inevitable eventuality? And three, how much of this whole saga actually has to do with providing medical facilities with radioactive isotopes (it remains unclear how much of the demand could have been met by ramping up other suppliers, and how much effort was put into investigating those possibilities), and how much of it has to do with the government’s desire to protect the sale price of AECL in preparation for its privatization?

Those questions (and others regarding AECL’s mismanagement in the lead-up to this crisis) are worthy of an inquiry. We’d all be able to sleep a lot better if they were answered.

The NDP is calling on the federal government to shut down Canada’s asbestos industry and scrap “horrifying” regulations that allow the use of the cancer-causing mineral in children’s toys and other products.

New Democratic MPs Pat Martin and Libby Davies released test results yesterday showing that asbestos is present in CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, a popular new children’s toy made in China.

“Asbestos is the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known and you would have to be insane to put asbestos in children’s toys,” Mr. Martin said. “It would be like putting razor blades in Halloween apples. So what does that say about a government that would allow it?”

Mr. Martin said new regulations under Canada’s Hazardous Materials Act allow asbestos-laden products “used by a child in education or play.”

“There is no safe level of asbestos,” [Ms. Davies] said. “There’s no question that it’s a carcinogen…We are exporting human misery at a staggering rate. Canada should be joining the international community to stop the production of asbestos and its export.”

Amen. Now that there are two parties who recognize this reality, hopefully the Liberals and Conservatives will soon have equally virtuous about-faces.

Yesterday morning’s news contained an alarm bell from a widespread coalition of groups (including Cancer Care Ontario, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Medical Association, the Ontario Federation of Labour, multiple public health units, and more) that we “are living in a toxic soup that’s increasing our risk of getting cancer and it’s high time the government takes steps to obliterate this environmental threat.” Specifically, they released a study that identifies “150 toxins and carcinogens in the air we breathe, the food we eat and products we use every day.” It also says that “59,500 Ontarians will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007 out of 159,900 in Canada. It is projected that by 2020, 91,000 new cancer cases will be diagnosed.”

These are not just statistics. Yesterday afternoon I bumped into a friend of mine who I haven’t seen since she was diagnosed with what she describes as “a wee case of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.” She’s already been through chemotherapy, and is about halfway done her radiation treatment. She must be exhausted, but she hid it well. She seemed as energetic and positive as ever, and there’s a good chance she’ll be OK. As someone in my twenties who’s already lost two friends to cancer, I welcome that good news.

In other good news, Canadians are starting to realize that environmental and health policies are related. On the other hand, that’s driven by the fact that “27 per cent of Canadians believe they have environment-related illnesses.”

In a new book called Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products (via this review), author Mark Schapiro “reveals the grim fact that some companies, whether American or international, often have two production lines: one that manufactures hazard-free products for the European Union and another that produces toxin-filled versions of the same items for [North] America and developing countries.” Because, you see, European governments have made it illegal for companies to poison their populations with known carcinogens, while our governments have not.

And here, we come to the final dot. Today and yesterday, Stephen Harper, George Bush (who each have approval ratings in the 30′s) and president Felipe Calderón of Mexico are engaged in closed-door talks to further North American deep integration via the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP. One of the objectives (or, at least, as far as we can tell, since the government’s position on these negotiations according to Stockwell Day is that they’re “private meetings” and “journalists should understand” they cannot be commented upon) is to unify environmental and health regulations, which could result in the US government deciding which toxins and carcinogens are allowed to go into our breakfast cereal.

I’d really rather we make that decision. And that the answer be “none.”

In Germany, the BBC reports:

German Mishaps Put Nuclear Power under Scrutiny

The company at first said it was just a small fire. But the blaze at Vattenfall’s Krümmel reactor has since become a political wildfire. Now, Germany’s pro-nuclear energy politicians have gone into hiding.

And in Japan:

Officials at the world’s biggest nuclear power plant said on Tuesday there had been more minor radiation leaks after an earthquake in Japan that killed nine people and forced thousands from their homes.

The latest admissions by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) have reignited fears about nuclear safety in a country that relies on atomic power for one-third of its electricity but has faced repeated cover-ups of past accidents by atomic power utilities…

…TEPCO had initially said the earthquake had not caused any leaks, but it revealed on Monday night that 1,200 liters of radioactive water had sloshed into the sea from its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata…

…Then on Tuesday, TEPCO officials confirmed a media report that said about 100 drums containing nuclear waste at a warehouse had fallen over and “several” lost their lids.

Reader Jonathan recently let us know about a trip he took to Ottawa and back via (cue dramatic music) Porter Airlines. That’s right, the airline of the infamous island airport.

It’s no secret that we have been less than enthusiastic about airport expansion, of which Porter Air’s operation has become the most prominent example. That being said, it’s worth noting that Jonathan’s review could not have been more glowing:

Wow! Flying is amazing! I think I might be spoiled forever…Just over two hours after I left my office, I was standing in Ottawa. To give that some context, I left work a little early and got to Ottawa before I normally get out of the office. Compare that with a train trip that takes over 4 hours for the trip alone! That two hours even includes 30 mins I had to kill in a nice lounge with free drinks and wifi.

Actually, we fully expect that his account is more or less typical, and we’ve heard similar stories from others. Not only that, but, as he points out, you would expect an experience so clearly superior to the train to cost way more, right? Not so! “The plane is just $41.70 more for a round-trip than the train,” Jonathan writes. “That’s less than $7 for every hour you save.”

So what’s the problem? If this is such a great service which is clearly filling a need (or, you know, at least the Western “I want it!” definition of need), how come so many people are getting so many bees in so many bonnets?

In fact, it comes down to that all-too-loaded word: cost. What we of course should have said is that Porter Air (and air travel in general) has a relatively low price. The cost, on the other hand, is both hidden and high.

These aren’t abstract, touchy-feely costs either. They’re real economic ones that we’ll all end up paying one way or another. The most blatant of these is the cost of climate change, which air travel contributes to much more than train travel, both because of the extra fuel/energy that’s needed to fly a plane, and also because of the high altitude at which those emissions are released. The Stern report (as everyone is hopefully tired of hearing about) pegged the real cost of not acting to reduce the severity of climate change (it’s already too late to stop it completely) at 3.68 trillion pounds. (Trillion! Pounds!) Stern, along with renowned author George Monbiot and the IPCC have also identified that, in order to avoid the worst of what climate change has to offer, we’ll need to make somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80% reductions in emissions below 1990 levels (that’s significant—always pay attention to the base year when people are talking about reductions) by the year 2050 at the latest (Monbiot suggests 2030).

Either we believe the science or we don’t. If we do, then we’ll quickly come to realize that there’s no room for flights of convenience in a world needing an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. (Note also the related but slightly different health and economic costs tied to air quality in Toronto.)

Does that make Jonathan, or others who fly Porter, bad people? We don’t think so. They’re simply making decisions that make sense for them, based on the information they’re presented with. That’s reasonable—that’s what we all do. And the most significant piece of information they have, in this case, is the artificially low price of the plane ticket, which hides its true, high cost. That’s why the idea of using the tax system to send the right price signals to the market is gaining in popularity. In other words, flying, which has a high cost once the externalities are factored in, should be significantly more expensive than taking the train. (This can be done in concert with reductions on other kinds of taxes, so that it’s revenue neutral and more politically palatable.)

In that scenario, individuals will be able to make informed decisions about whether or not they think flying is really worth it. If they do, then fine, but fewer people will. A level of personal freedom will be preserved, and emissions will also be reduced. Unfortunately, of course, this is one of those things that would have to be implemented provincially or federally. Until then, we’ll have to focus on the things that can be done municipally.

The problem is, of course, that when you define freedom that liberally (hehe) and approach it in such an ideological way, you back yourself into impossible corners. (Witness Donald Rumsfeld’s famous observation that “Free people are free to…commit crimes and do bad things.”) I asked the Conservative volunteer if she would agree that, even though it’s a free country (whatever that means), the government would be within their rights to, say, prevent people from putting poison in children’s food. (She did.) I then explained to her the process by which toxins like pesticides work their way up the food chain, bioaccumulating and becoming more potent at each level, until ultimately they show up in mothers’ breast milk.

At this point, she uncomfortably changed the subject. I don’t remember what to, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with “liberal corruption.”

I was reminded of that by two main news stories today, which report that some children’s necklaces have been recalled due to lead poising risk, and that politicians are even more toxic than humans. Er, I mean, more than other humans. (Apparently, Jack Layton is particularly fire retardant.)

The Globe and Mail reports that the testing, done on Jack Layton, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, and Liberal environment critic John Godfrey, “found a bewildering cocktail of contaminants…[that] have been found to cause cancer, disrupt normal hormone function, and lead to birth defects,” including DDT, which has been banned for decades but will continue to circulate in the environment for decades to come.

The politicians had between 49 and 55 pollutants in their bodies, slightly more than what most Canadians are carrying around. Most upsetting for me is that, according to Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence who did the study, the politicians “were surprised as heck by the results.” They shouldn’t be. This is neither news nor new. I wonder if Rick had to resist an urge to slap them.

Regardless, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say, on record, that I don’t think we should be poisoning children, or, heck, even politicians. I know, I know, it’s a controversial position, but I think it’s important to take a principled stand on this one, public opinion be damned. In fact, a well-known Green Party member once suggested to me that we use the following campaign slogan: “The Green Party: We don’t want to poison your kids.” Catchy, ain’t it?

i’m participating in a fundraiser for breast cancer on october 1st where i will be running 5k, imagining that i’m stomping on cancer with each stride. you might already know that i lost a really amazing friend last month to cancer, and while it wasn’t breast cancer, a number of his friends are running together as a team called, ‘the palligators’ to support the canadian breast cancer foundation. it should also be noted that he is not the first person this group of friends has lost to cancer.the point of this run is to raise money to research treatment, early detection and prevention in addition to supporting communities and families affected by breast cancer. so, having said that, i need your help reaching my personal fundraising goal of $500, and my team’s fundraising goal of $3000. i’ve included a link in this e-mail which will take you to my donations page. you can do it online with your credit card and it’s super quick and easy. you even get a tax receipt for your charitable donation. plus, i’ll be eternally grateful.

Click here.

even if you can only donate $10, it will put me that much closer to my goal.

thanks in advance.

alex.

“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” – Herman Daly, Former Senior Economist, World Bank

That’s good news for the Green Party, because we’re the only ones who can speak with credibility on all three of those issues, and how they relate to each other.

“The emergence of Stéphane Dion as the ecological conscience of the Liberal leadership campaign and the advent of Elizabeth May as leader of the Green Party, are blowing away the NDP’s chances of portraying itself as the champion of the environment.” Chantal Hébert, The Toronto Star, Sept. 13, 2006.

Our current economy is designed to use up our resources as quickly as possible. As long as we believe that “economic growth” can continue as it has for only the past millisecond of our existence, we will fail. We need to transform our economy.

Our environment is in trouble. A full two-thirds of the systems that support life on this planet are in decline. As long as environmental policies are focused exclusively on “spending money” on the environment and regulating against misaligned economic indicators, they will fail. We need to transform our outlook.

Our health system is sick. From childhood asthma in the young to a cancer epidemic in the increasingly young, costs of all kinds are rising. As long as we think we can fix our heath care system by increasing its funding in perpetuity, as we get sicker and sicker, we will fail. We need to transform the way we think about health.

Canadians are smart people, and have their priorities right. Now we’ve just got to vote like it.