Uranium Mining: No Can Du

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Crossposted from Torontoist.com 

For the last 50 days, Donna Dillman has been on a hunger strike to protest uranium mining in eastern Ontario. Tomorrow (Tuesday), she brings that fight to the steps of Queen’s Park, and she’d like you to join her.

Donna, a grandmother, is concerned about strong scientific evidence that particles released into the air and water during uranium mining and processing contribute to increased rates of cancer and organ damage, especially in children. The CBC recently reported that 4 out of 9 people screened had radioactive chemicals in their bones after living near a uranium processing facility.

On the other side of the argument is the very well-funded nuclear lobby, which spends immense amounts of money trying to convince citizens and government that nuclear is “safe, clean, and affordable,” an ironic set of keywords that seem to take nuclear’s biggest faults (it’s highly risky, produces extremely dangerous waste that lasts for a million years, and costs far more than any other kind of power generation) and sell them as strengths.

Complicating the scenario are recent moves to require exporting countries of uranium (a very small club of which Canada is a member) to take back radioactive nuclear waste once the fuel is spent. So not only would the health of Canadians be compromised during the initial mining process, we’d also be stuck living with the world’s supply of what is possibly the most dangerous substance we’ve ever created for a much longer timeline than we can possibly plan for.

Donna begins her march at 11:00 a.m. this Tuesday at the corner of Orde St. (one block south of College) and University Ave. From there her and her supporters will walk to the main legislative building at Queen’s Park to ask the Premier to hold an open public inquiry into the dangers and benefits of uranium. For more information on her hunger strike, visit the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium or follow Donna’s blog.

Peter MacKay Thinks You’re Un-Canadian

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That is, if you oppose even the current nature of our military involvement in Afghanistan. Further, in MacKay’s twisted logic if you think that Canadian troops should be protected from implication in war crimes, then you’re somehow not “supporting the troops.”

“What is immensely clear is that the bombast and the blast coming from the member for Bourassa does nothing to demonstrate that his party or that member support the troops.

These scurrilous allegations that somehow Canadian soldiers are complicit in war crimes is beyond contempt. It is reprehensible. It is un-Canadian for that member to make those kind of allegations in this place.” – Peter MacKay

I wonder what you have to do to be declared doubleplusuncanadian. These comments from a minister of the government are shameful and disgraceful, and show a disrespect for our soldiers, Parliament, democracy, you, and me. They would be beyond belief if Stephen Harper hadn’t already set the tone. And don’t even get me started on this nonsense from John Baird.

Oh, and by the way, “scurrilous” is defined as “abusive: expressing offensive reproach.” Uh-huh.

(h/t Sean In Saskatchewan)

Running To Win

climate crisis, green party, toronto,

Last weekend the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of over 2500 scientific experts from 130 different countries that’s been working since 1988, released their fourth and final report [pdf] on the urgent crisis that threatens our economy, our quality of life, and many lives. For some reason it was put out with the trash and didn’t receive the attention it deserves. Regardless, the report warns us of two main realities we need to take to heart: climate change is accelerating even more quickly than what we previously thought to be the worst-case scenario, and we only have four years to take dramatic corrective action before it will be too late to avoid a frighteningly destabilized world. And yet, some claim their projections are still “too rosy.”

The previous week a different group, the International Energy Agency, released their own report with remarkably similar conclusions.

A year or two ago we ended the debate on the existence of climate change. More recently we’ve all but ended the debate on whether or not our actions are the key contributor to that change. We need to now stop debating any question of how much action is needed, and how soon it must happen. The answer is clear: we need to fundamentally re-imagine how we’ve structured our society, and we need to do it now.

All three of the other national parties promise to take action on the environment, and none are completely without any good ideas. But none of them propose doing what the science now tells us is necessary, and some of their proposed actions could even do more harm than good.

There is no more time for business as usual. There is no more time for the same ideas, coming from the same political parties. In a way more real than these clichéd political slogans could ever express, we need new ideas. We need genuine change.

In less than two months Toronto Centre will be in a by-election, and voters will be given a special opportunity to send a strong message to Ottawa, without the risk and strategic calculations that come into play during a general election. It’s a fantastic opportunity to make history and change the political climate in Canada.

Call me arrogant or call me vain, but I’m not running to be a protest vote or a sideshow. I’m running to win. We’ve got to put these plans into action. To ask, “if not us then who? if not now, then when?” is to come up with no other satisfactory answer.

I hope you’ll join me.