NEW YORK - Watching loud-mouthed preachers of morality getting caught with their pants down is one of life's great pleasures.
This week, it was Ottawa's turn. Canada has been scourging the wicked Americans for refusing to join the worldwide ban on anti-personnel land mines. Even though Washington has compelling reasons to keep AP mines in South Korea, Ottawa has heaped moral outrage on the US for shunning its crusade.
Yesterday, the New York Times front-paged a major expose on Canada's nuclear export program that reaffirms the old adage about people in glass houses. While fulminating against tiny land mines, Canada, the story charged, has sold gravely defective, potentially lethal nuclear reactors to nations that can't operate or maintain them.
Seven of 12 reactors in Ontario are being mothballed because of major safety problems, and the inability of Ontario Hydro, a temple of Canadian socialism, and one of North America's largest utilities, to properly run or maintain them. A recent Ontario Hydro report painted a terrifying picture of accidents, sloppiness, and negligence, including nuclear crews drinking beer and smoking pot.
Ottawa has spent $14 billion subsidizing export of the same Candu reactors to India, Romania, South Korea, Argentina, Pakistan, and, recently, a $4.2 billion subsidized deal to build two reactors outside Shanghai.
In 1974, India used its Canadian reactor, which produces large amounts of plutonium, to make an atomic bomb. Technology provided by gullible Ottawa allowed India to develop one of the world's largest, secret nuclear weapons programs. I've visited two of India's big reactors and found them scary places. India's claim to be a high-tech nation are dubious: for example, the Indian Air Force has lost almost 25% of its aircraft due to accidents and poor maintenance.
India's Canadian-fathered nuclear program forced Pakistan to use its Candu reactors to develop nuclear weapons. Romania and Argentina also tried to produce nuclear weapons from their Candus.
Canada has thus been shockingly guilty of aiding nuclear proliferation. Now, it seems, Candus spread around the globe may be ticking time bombs. If the supposedly highly-skilled technicians and management at Ontario Hydro dangerously bungled their job of running Candus, how are less-qualified staffs in other nations expected to keep their reactors operating safely? If Ontario is shutting down 7 of 12 reactors, and urgently refurbishing the rest at a cost of $12 billion, what about the export versions that are known as being far harder and more complex to operate than US or European systems?
Recently, there have been a spate of horror stories about leaks and breakdowns at Candu reactors in Romania, Argentina, South Korea and India. Officially, the International Atomic Energy commission says the Candus are safe. But off the record, officials are seriously worried about the notoriously problem-ridden Candus.
A senior nuclear UN official here in New York just told me, off the record, the export Candus are "an accident waiting to happen." "If Canadian technicians almost turned Pickering into a bomb," another expert quips, "just imagine what Indians or South Koreans could do."
South Korea, which has a well-deserved reputation for shoddy construction work and poor maintenance, is a prime candidate for a nuclear disaster. Bridges and buildings routinely collapse in South Korea. Workers at the Korean reactor now wear masks, packed with ice, to ward off poisonous fumes.
Until this bombshell, the late Soviet Union was public enemy number one in the world nuclear business for exporting unsafe graphite reactors like the one that blew up at Chernobyl. Now, Canada has joined the club.
Ottawa fiddles about land mines while trying to export more reactors to China, Turkey and other countries. A major accident at just one of the overseas Candus could dwarf the explosive power and casualties caused by all the world's mines combined.
Copyright: E. Margolis, December 1997
Reprinted with Permission
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Inside Track On World News
International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
The Toronto Sun