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Corruption and Hubris of the Privileged Elite Dangers Posed by Seizure of Government Decision-Making Power by Private InterestsThis issue of Workers' Forum addresses the dangers posed by waste material from nuclear reactors and the control of decisions about its disposal by narrow private interests. The seizure of governments by narrow private interests is a main feature of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive. It is a matter of profound concern the working class must settle scores with. The articles in this paper expose one of the several plans most recently revealed of how narrow private interests have taken over governments to provide public funds and entrust monopoly corporations with what they call, "the safe storing of nuclear waste," in order to make enormous profits. As the articles correctly point out, there is no such thing, because the safe handling and storing of nuclear waste is a problem of science that has yet to be sorted out. The revelation by Radio-Canada that negotiations in this case are going on in secret reveals the corruption inherent in what is touted as the Canadian rules-based system and the need for the working people of this country to put an end to it. The fact is that this continues the practice of the Harper government which handed over the nuclear industry and all the reactors in Canada to private interests. Not quite ten years ago, Atomic Energy Canada (AECL), the Crown corporation which ran the nuclear laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario, and owned and operated several CANDU reactors in Canada, was broken up and sold to SNC-Lavalin. The work of safely harnessing nuclear energy was taken out of the hand of scientists and public authorities and made into a for profit enterprise under the control of private interests. All legal as far as passing laws goes. One of the Harper government's last actions before losing the election in 2015 was to create the Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA) which is a government-owned but contractor-operated organization (GOCO) which is one of the most lucrative pay-the-rich schemes established under the guise of reducing the $7.9 billion nuclear waste liability that was identified. The majority of the members of CNEA are foreign corporations like Fluor and Jacobs, two Texas-based multinationals involved in nuclear weapons production. The other main member is SNC-Lavalin. The CNEA assumed control over all of Canada's federal nuclear facilities and radioactive waste and the record shows that since the establishment of this consortium the costs to the Canadian government have almost quadrupled. According to AECL financial reports, parliamentary appropriations rose from $327 million in 2015 to $1.3 billion (approved) for the year ending March 31, 2021. AECL's nuclear waste liabilities have not gone down, but appear to have increased by about $200 million. Without much public knowledge about the increased cost, let alone discussion, the Trudeau government and AECL renewed the GOCO contract with the CNEA early during the pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. The CNEA is also behind the proposal for a disposal facility for nuclear waste at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratory campus at Chalk River. The proposal has been met with strong opposition from First Nations, civil society groups, 140 Quebec municipalities, nuclear waste experts and scientists and concerned citizens. Despite the broad opposition the project continues and the consortium continues to receive close to a billion dollars a year from public funds. To make matters worse the consortium is bringing thousands of truck-loads of radioactive waste to the Chalk River site from other federal facilities in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The bottom line is that with the domination of the nuclear industry by private interests not only has the necessary scientific research under public control been sabotaged but tons of radioactive substances that remain toxic to all life for hundreds of thousands of years are being disposed of with no thought of the permanent damage to the environment and the contamination of the Ottawa River, a source of drinking water for Ottawa, Gatineau, Montreal and many other communities. The domination of the nuclear industry by private interests is important to show the seriousness of the situation. This dangerous course of action has been put in place over many years by different governments and it will not stop there. The fact that the citizenry does not control the decisions which set the direction of the economy and that narrow private interests have been politicized with the revolving door between the cabinet, the privy council and private consultants and the oligopolies poses a great danger for the people and the natural environment. All major decisions in the economy and politics must be in the hands of the people on the basis of a renewed democratic political process which blocks the current ways used to deprive the people of decision-making power.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
