Media Release
For release August 11, 2002
 

Ottawa — Today Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region, David Kilgour, will see first-hand what billions of tax-payer dollars and cabinet interference can buy Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Guided by representatives of AECL, Kilgour will visit the two controversial CANDU reactors under construction at Qinshan in China. He will also participate in activities celebrating AECL’s 50th anniversary.

“I don’t see any reason to celebrate” said Elizabeth May, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. “The Canadian government broke its own laws to build those CANDUs and had to give the Chinese one and half billion to buy them. They’re an insult to Canadian democracy.”

In January 1997, the Sierra Club of Canada launched a court case challenging the federal government’s failure to conduct an environmental assessment after lending $1.5 billion to China for the purchase of the two CANDU 600 reactors at Qinshan. The $1.5 billion dollar loan is the largest in Canadian history.

After a cabinet memo noting the strength of the Sierra Club of Canada’s case was leaked to the public, AECL applied for intervenor status. Since then, AECL actions have delayed the legal proceedings and made the question of an environmental assessment increasingly moot as the construction of the Chinese reactors proceeds.

Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout stated that the Qinshan reactors are just another example of how AECL does business. “AECL can’t survive without government handouts and support” Stensil explained. “The federal government gives AECL subsidies to design CANDUs and then it pays other countries to build them. It makes no business sense whatsoever.”

In 1995, AECL put its name on the line and vowed to sell ‘ten reactors in ten years.’ Since then, attempted CANDU sales to Turkey, South Korea and Australia have all failed. The two reactors being built at Qinshan are the only successful sales.

According to Norman Rubin of Energy Probe, the most appropriate way to commemorate AECL’s 50th anniversary would be to end federal subsidies to AECL. “Canadians just can’t afford another 50 years of AECL’s waste” he said.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is a Crown Corporation that has received over 17 billion dollars in subsidies over its 50 year history.

The Sierra Club of Canada’s federal court case is ongoing.

For further information please contact:

Shawn-Patrick Stensil, National Coordinator, Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, 613-789-3634
Elizabeth May, Executive Director, Sierra Club of Canada, 613-241-4611
Norm Rubin, Director of Nuclear Research, Energy Probe, 416-964-3761

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