Canada’s nuclear salvation may come back to haunt us

Canada apparently needs India and China to keep our nuclear industry alive.
The question remains at what price.
Some of our mainstream media pundits pushed by the forces that run the Nuclear K-mart are giddy with the prospect of the tax-dollar guzzling Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) doing business again with the Asian behemoths.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in India last week for some nuclear foreplay inking trade deals to court India’s nuclear ambitions.
China is also on the cards for our CANDU reactors.
Coming off some of their worst years, AECL cheerleaders have somehow managed to convince the once nuclear-wary Tories, that these deals will be beneficial to Canada.
Maybe they will.
More likely is the fact that if AECL doesn’t get any business from China or India, the crown corporation will die and so will its CANDU reactor technology.
Today in Canada there is just no domestic urgency to go nuclear and this was underlined by Ontario’s recent decision to postpone indefinitely plans for two new reactors.
Even with privatization, AECL’s prospects look limited.
That is why Harper and his nuclear road show are targeting India and China both of which have dozens of new reactors planned or under construction.
Which brings us to the question; is Canada’s nuclear industry more important than making this world safer?
We gave India a nuclear research reactor in the early seventies and the South Asian nation promptly used the plutonium manufactured in the reactor to make a bomb.
India then tested the bomb at the infamous Pokhran desert site in 1974 triggering howls of outrage around the world and frightening Pakistan into speeding up its own nuclear program.
Canada retaliated by cutting off nuclear assistance to India but by then the country had transferred enough technology to independently build seven Canadian Candu ‘clones’.
In 1998, the Canadian taxpayer funded arms race between Pakistan and India blew up with India detonating five nuclear test bombs prompting Pakistan to explode six of its own.
While working with India, the tax-dollar guzzling Atomic Energy of Canada was training Pakistan‘s nuclear scientists and engineers in Karachi, Ontario and New Brunswick.
All of them were working for Pakistan‘s nuclear godfather, Dr. A.Q. Khan, who was arrested for making millions of dollars in the nuclear black-market. He has since been linked to nuclear proliferation activities from North Korea to Iran.
India has also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, outlawing nuclear tests.
When it comes to China, the Chretien-led Liberals pumped hundreds of millions of interest-free loans to entice Beijing to buy CANDU technology.
China took the money, turned around and shopped at another nuclear bazaar.
Both India and China have a track record of betrayal when it comes to Canada’s nuclear expertise.
It will be wise for Canada to look back before moving forward.
Because saving AECL may one day come back to haunt us.