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Syndicate
More on the uranium industry in Canada:
Atomic Accomplice: How Canada Deals in Deadly Deceit by environmental journalist Paul McKay (availible online at paulmckay.com).
Review of the McKay book in the G&M here.
excerpt:
It is a damning and alarming indictment - and thoroughly bipartisan, too. Written from years of accumulated research, Mr. McKay spares neither the left nor the right. The CCF's Tommy Douglas, the socialist premier from uranium-rich Saskatchewan, lobbied hard in the 1950s for federal subsidies to bankroll uranium mines. More recently, the NDP's Lorne Calvert, as Saskatchewan premier, championed the sale of uranium to China - only one in the list of dictatorships courted by Canada as prospective clients for this country's government-sustained nuclear industry.
Beyond doubt, this industry has survived solely through overt and covert government manipulation of the marketplace; in the case of Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, for example, through a shameful price-fixing conspiracy that inflated the price of uranium more than fivefold. Federal subsidies to the industry - so far - exceed $30-billion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper
has trebled support for the industry, committing a further $1.7-billion in the past three years.
January 6, 2010: Sept-Îles residents oppose uranium exploration
excerpt:
The Quebec government has a duty to put a stop to plans for uranium exploration in the Sept-Îles region because of the overwhelming opposition of residents, the city's mayor, Serge Lévesque, said Tuesday.
Lévesque was reacting to the release of a poll ordered by municipal officials last month after two dozen local doctors threatened to resign if B.C.-based Terra Ventures Inc. goes ahead with planned drilling in the area.
excerpt:
Quebec's Junior Natural Resources Minister Serge Simard has said no uranium mining project in the region would be approved without local support.
Lévesque said he hopes Simard will stand by his word.
"I think he has the power to stop the project right now," Lévesque said.
A bit off-topic: Residents fear prospect race for lithium
excerpt:
Hart said most property owners are surprised to learn that prospectors have a legal right to go on their land. He said the mining act allows mineral exploration companies to expropriate private land where there are significant mineral finds.
Uranium is one of the most soluable metals and the most toxic. Congratulations to your Doctors! I wish we had this out west. This thread, re, nukes should be it's own large catagory in Babble.
Thanks for the compliment. A lot of good links in the Facebook group I referenced in post #5 (now at 6,159 members) . It's a great source if you're bilingual - I'm not fully bilingual, but I can usually get the gist of most articles in French.
Seriously? For batteries or for mood disorders? That's quite some element.
Uranium as well.
And, from the same article:
When Lemay is asked whether there will be a mine near Meech Lake in Gatineau Park, he chuckles and says there could be a mine if there is a significant find on private property.
The National Capital Commission said in 2006 that mineral exploration and mining are not allowed within the park because of a 1973 agreement between the NCC and the Quebec government.
Jean-Paul Murray, a Gatineau Park activist, said there is nothing the National Capital Commission could do to stop mining in the park because the Quebec government does not recognize the agreement not to issue mining permits on park land.
Geez, I feel kind of ashamed. I come from a long line of miners on my mother's side. Cominco in Trail, Thailand, elsewhere. That was decades ago, though.
http://www.vandalfamily.org/Vandal/b1373.html#P4493
Almost missed this: Expanding uranium exploration sparks concern, protests in Quebec
excerpt:
"There's a whole debate that needs to happen," says Loraine Richard, the Parti Quebecois Member of the National Assembly [MNA] for Sept-Iles. "When there are almost 20 doctors who want to leave my region, I stand up and take notice." On February 17, Richard presented a citizens' petition to the National Assembly calling for a province-wide moratorium on uranium exploration, a concept supported by MNAs from the Parti Québécois and Québec Solidaire, but rejected by the majority Liberals.
Many activists now see the Sept-Iles experience as a template for successful organizing because it has mobilized citizens and politicians and made prospecting a public issue in a way it has never previously been in Quebec.
Nevertheless, the ultimate outcome for the Lake Kachiwiss site remains uncertain. For the moment, the provincial Liberals' strategy seems to be to deal with Sept-Iles as an isolated case that can be dealt with without addressing any broader issues of mining policy.
However, speaking in the National Assembly on December 4, Serge Simard, the Liberal minister responsible for mining, promised that a uranium mine at Lake Kachiwiss would not go forward without local endorsement. Also, in recent weeks Terra Ventures has suspended its prospecting in what looks to be a gentleman's agreement with the government.
But as Sept-Iles' MNA Richard points out: "If they [Terra Ventures] wanted to dig tomorrow morning, legally speaking, they could do it."
And as long as the policy of free-entry mining remains unchallenged, it is difficult to see how either municipal legislators or MNAs like Simard can make promises to their constituents with any degree of conviction.
excerpt:
Since 2005, a plethora of companies have obtained permits from the Quebec government to drill in approximately 20 locations, and have extracted up to 250 core samples per site along an axis extending 800km from Tadoussac through Sept-Iles to the eastern terminus of Highway 138 at Natashquan.
Natashquan is 44 km from where I live.
another excerpt from that same article:
According to Sept-Iles residents, the prospecting site is not fenced in, the drill holes, as of June last year, were uncapped, and the company has neglected to post signs to warn the population about potential radioactivity. The core samples are stored on open-air racks, exposed to the elements.
Marc Fafard, a logger and local activist, describes the result of leaving such unusual objects unattended, and essentially unmarked, in a frequented area.
"You've got these lovely core samples, soft, beautiful as fossils, nice to touch," he explains. Samples "were showing up in people's living rooms".
I'm still stunned by the idea that folks have picked up possible uranium core samples to decorate their living rooms. Can someone knowledgeable about this explain to me if there are immediate and/or long-term dangers from touching a genuine uranium core sample?
Anti-uranium doctors renew threat to resign
excerpt:
Nearly two-dozen doctors in Sept-Îles, Que., are renewing their threats to resign and leave the province after the government rejected calls for a moratorium on uranium mining and exploration in the region.
The only danger would be from the dust of a crushed/broken specimen entering the lungs.
But are you folks petitioning Quebec city?
I think the Facebook page has several references to our provincial representative bringing this up in the National Assembly, there has been a petition, and a large demonstration, and many newspaper articles. Quebec is aware of the situation.
Protest spreading close to where I live:
Un groupe d'opposants à l'exploration et l'exploitation de l'uranium est en cours de formation en Minganie. Minganie sans uranium joindra ses efforts à ceux de Sept-Îles sans uranium.