HANDE: Follow the yellowcake road

[Oscar]

HANDE: Follow the yellowcake road

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/ ... wcake-road ]

Nuclear power, tarsands extraction, and the co-option of the University of Saskatchewan

by D’Arcy Hande • Feb 28, 2012 • Politics, Society

In 2011 the University of Saskatchewan went truly nuclear, realizing, in many respects, the loftiest ambitions of the uranium industry and its supporters within the provincial government and the university. On October 14, 2011, the University of Saskatchewan board of governors formally approved the incorporation of the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) “to stimulate new research, development and training in advanced aspects of nuclear science and technology.”

Although the pieces seemed to come together in just a few short months, the game plan had been coalescing since Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government was first elected in 2007 (read the full timeline here: [ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/ ... -collusion ] ). Tracing corporate connections and developments behind the scenes shows how a coordinated strategy can be implemented largely outside public purview and beyond generally accepted public accountability.

Saskatchewan 2020: Powering the tarsands

Uranium development in Saskatchewan is nothing new. Tommy Douglas’ Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government first encouraged uranium mining in the province in the 1940s, and successive NDP governments followed suit.

A proposal to establish a uranium refinery at the town of Warman was floated by Allan Blakeney’s NDP government in the late 1970s but shelved after a huge public backlash. Another 30 years passed before the newly elected Saskatchewan Party began to aggressively push the nuclear agenda once again.

Early in its mandate, Brad Wall’s government entered into discussions with Bruce Power of Ontario regarding the establishment of a nuclear reactor in the province. In June 2008, a joint feasibility study was announced between Bruce Power and the Crown corporation SaskPower, touting the benefits of “clean electricity” to replace the coal and gas power stations in the province. The proposed Saskatchewan 2020 program would investigate “how best to integrate nuclear energy, which produces no greenhouse gases when it produces electricity, with hydrogen, wind, solar and clean coal technologies to give Saskatchewan a diverse and secure supply of clean energy for 2020 and beyond.”

But clean energy was not the primary consideration. In fact, the proposal builds upon the dubious concept of using nuclear energy to power the extraction of oil from the Athabasca tarsands, oxymoronically termed “green bitumen” by the industry.

Bruce Power is two-thirds owned by Cameco Corporation and TransCanada Corporation, the latter of which operates the Keystone pipeline. It is therefore no surprise that the feasibility report, unveiled in November 2008, deemed there was sufficient demand for a nuclear power station in the province. The report states that “the growth in electricity demand in northeastern Alberta could provide a possible export market for Saskatchewan,” an allusion that could only refer to the tarsands. Thus the Saskatchewan 2020 nuclear power plan was launched.

In late 2008, as part of their strategy to implement the Saskatchewan 2020 plan, the government established the Uranium Development Partnership (UDP), comprising representatives from the nuclear industry, the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), and other supporters. It is striking that the only academic on the committee was designated its chair: Dr. Richard Florizone, a physicist and the vice-president of finance and resources at the U of S, who has long been a proponent of a nuclear research reactor on campus and presumably saw great potential for collaboration between industry and the university.

The UDP report, released in March 2009, contained 20 recommendations for nuclear development in the province, including one for the creation of a nuclear centre of excellence in Saskatchewan. Shortly afterward, the government announced a public consultation process on the UDP recommendations to be conducted that summer, which was an unexpected public relations disaster: fully 88 per cent of the 2,263 responses rejected the overall strategy of the report. Bill Boyd, then minister of energy and resources, was shaken but undeterred. Boyd interpreted the results to mean, “… it’s neither a green light nor a red light for future uranium development. It’s more like a yellow light – take any next steps with caution.”

Industry, government, and the university unite

What followed was a truly remarkable exercise in pushing the whole nuclear agenda under the political radar. Rather than slowing down and taking a cautionary approach, the government instead began assiduously advancing its program through the University of Saskatchewan, which was apparently a willing partner.

Through its rather clandestine agencies – the newly established Enterprise Saskatchewan and its twin, Innovation Saskatchewan – the government focused on promoting the concept of a U of S nuclear centre of excellence. The government also proposed a nuclear reactor at the university as the means for producing medical isotopes, even though the UDP report acknowledged that a reactor dedicated solely to that purpose would not be financially sustainable. Nevertheless, an application for federal funding was prepared in the summer of 2009 by the university and government. When the application was rejected a few months later, the strategy took off in yet another direction.

In 2010, a cabinet shuffle placed the provincial minister of advanced education, Rob Norris – who had been employed at the U of S from 1999 to 2007 and enjoyed a close working relationship with the university’s president, Peter MacKinnon – at the helm of Innovation Saskatchewan. Responsibility for the UDP was transferred from Bill Boyd to Rob Norris at this time as well. The realignment of cabinet appointments positioned Norris perfectly for synchronizing his industrial and academic agendas.

Enterprise Saskatchewan was also working hard behind the scenes to see the UDP agenda implemented. The university vice-president of research, Karen Chad, was added to Enterprise Saskatchewan’s board of directors, and Grant Isaac, senior vice-president of Cameco and former director of the U of S Edwards School of Business, joined the research, development, and commercialization sector team.

The confluence of industry, government, and university interests was quickly materializing. [ http://ussword.blogspot.ca/p/infographic.html ]. The concept of a nuclear centre at U of S came one step closer to reality in March 2011, when the provincial government announced a start-up grant of $30 million over seven years. By the end of March 2011, when the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation was announced, Enterprise Saskatchewan (ES) could boast in its annual report, “Eighteen of the 20 recommendations made by the Uranium Development Partnership – which resulted from an ES board recommendation – have now been implemented.”

A nuclear research centre is hatched

The formation of the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation in October 2011 followed a highly restricted debate of the proposal at a meeting of the university council, comprising representatives from faculty and administration, a few weeks before. The university senate, the branch of university governance representing the community at large, was largely ignored in the process. USSWORD senators (University Senators in Saskatchewan Working to Revive Democracy) attempted to raise their concerns at the fall meeting on October 15, but the governors had already approved CCNI’s establishment – on October 14.

The CCNI business framework clearly states the expectations of the provincial government in funding the centre:

“… the province expects nuclear power to be considered in the range of energy options available for base-load generation capacity in the medium and long term after 2020, and that the CCNI will be able to serve as a source of expertise to inform decisions in this area.”

Although the CCNI will be a university subsidiary, concerns were raised about its governance structure at a university council meeting in September 2011. The university will directly appoint only two of the CCNI’s eight directors, raising questions about how much control the university will have over research priorities and how much control the government and its partners in the nuclear industry will exercise. With the announcement of the board in January 2012, the concerns appear to be warranted. The CEO of Innovation Saskatchewan and vice-presidents from Cameco Corporation and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited are among the appointees.

A gentle wooing

The readiness with which the university administration and faculty accepted the establishment of the CCNI comes as no surprise. One might conclude, after reading to this point, that there is an aura of inevitability about it. But in fact, the foundations for university support have been carefully built over several years. The uranium industry, and particularly Cameco – its chief manifestation here in Saskatchewan – have assiduously wooed the University of Saskatchewan and given millions of dollars in endowments to chairs, scholarships, and infrastructure over the past two decades. Cameco Plaza, next to the Administration Building, and Cameco Skywalk at Royal University Hospital, are among the most visible physical signs of this corporate impact.

Several of the faculty, directors, and department heads who wrote glowing letters of support for the establishment of CCNI have at one time or another seen their programs benefit from Cameco’s largesse. For example, days after the director of the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development at the U of S issued a fervent endorsement of the CCNI, a press release reported a $2 million grant to the centre, jointly funded by Cameco and the provincial government.

Moreover, the personal connections between the U of S and Cameco are well developed. Former university president J.W. George Ivany joined Cameco’s board of directors immediately after his term ended in 1999. Grant Isaac, former dean of the Edwards School of Business at the U of S, joined the Cameco board in 2009 and has been Cameco’s chief financial officer since 2011. Nancy Hopkins, another member of Cameco’s board, has been on the U of S board of governors since 2005 and its chair since 2010.

As further evidence of the cozy relationship between Cameco and the inner circle at the U of S, one might point to university president Peter MacKinnon’s excursion to Cameco’s northern operations and stay at its exclusive lodge on Yalowega Lake in August 2009. Hosted by then CEO Jerry Grandey, MacKinnon was flown in at company expense and treated to the haute cuisine of John Nater, lodge manager and world-class Swiss chef.

Making sense of the Land of Oz

After reviewing this brief history of collaboration between industry, government, and the university, one may be struck with a profound sense of the surreal. It is as though, like Dorothy, we are transported to an alternate reality, the Land of Oz. Here, all the talk is about the bright future of nuclear medicine and glittering isotopes. But go down the shady side path into the forest, and one encounters the dark underside of the nuclear agenda and its connection to tarsands extraction.

The labyrinthine network of corporate, government, and university connections represents continuing efforts toward the development of one or more nuclear reactors in Saskatchewan to power extraction of oil from the tarsands. All the while, the nuclear industry is also actively courting northern Saskatchewan communities to host a nuclear waste management site. Radioactive waste would be transported overland through populated areas from eastern Canada and beyond in order to get there.

In August 2011, Rob Norris announced that the provincial government and Japan’s Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd. would each provide $5 million to the university for “a research partnership focusing on nuclear medicine, materials science, nuclear safety and small reactor design.” While nuclear medicine is always at the forefront in public announcements, the applied research and development interests of the nuclear industry are ultimately what drive the agenda. In other words, no matter how we negotiate the maze of corporate connections, retracing our steps along the yellowcake road always takes us back to the 2008 launch of the Saskatchewan 2020 plan.

Equally disturbing is the pervasive climate of corporatism that has crept over the University of Saskatchewan in the past two decades. Most academics dare not question or criticize the influence of the nuclear industry on campus. The rigorous discourse normally associated with academia is all but absent in this debate; the pall of corporate influence has nearly extinguished discussion and dissent.

Instead, the administration has mounted an aggressive campaign to discredit those who speak out. As an example, when concerns were raised about Nancy Hopkins’ apparent conflict of interest – serving both as a director of Cameco and the chair of the U of S board of governors – they were indignantly dismissed by both administration and board. Hopkins also chaired the search committee for the new university president, Ilene Busch-Vishniac, who will take office in July 2012. Many fear that it will be business as usual under the new president, given her record at McMaster University where she most recently served as provost.

The university administration is complicit, the faculty and staff are largely acquiescent, and the vast majority of students appear to be oblivious to the dangers of encroaching corporate influence. It has been left to a few faculty and students and a minority of university senators to raise the alarm about the murky undercurrents. The prospect of nuclear development in Saskatchewan obviously has broader social implications, too. With the provincial and federal governments and the university so invested in advancing this agenda, how can the public trust that unbiased environmental impact studies and rigorous monitoring of health and safety standards will be conducted in the interests of the public good?

In light of these alarming trends, it is essential that opposition to the university’s role in nuclear development extend to the wider community. Ordinary citizens have the responsibility to demand that democratic processes be followed and that open academic debate be revitalized and restored in the interests of good governance, public health and safety, university autonomy, and scholarly independence.

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D’Arcy Hande, a retired archivist and historian, has keenly followed the uranium industry’s activity in Saskatchewan since the Saskatchewan Party government launched the Uranium Development Partnership in 2008. A long-time opponent of the promotion of nuclear power as sustainable energy, he paid close attention to the negotiation of the collaboration agreement between Cameco and Areva and the Village of Pinehouse, and interviewed many of the agreement’s foremost opponents in Pinehouse. In June 2013, he joined 38 other plaintiffs in challenging the agreement at the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.

[Oscar]

Cameco/Areva/Pinehouse Mayor/FOI Request . . . & $200 M?

Legal action seeks transparency from Northern Village of Pinehouse regarding payments from uranium giants Cameco and Areva

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/announcem ... -pinehouse ]

2138 McIntyre Street, Regina, SK S4P 2R7
c 306.525.2949 or 1.866.431.5777 d

[ http://www.briarpatchmagazine.com ]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2014

Plaintiffs D’Arcy Hande, Valerie Zink, and Andrew Loewen filed a statement of claim in the Court of Queen’s Bench today seeking compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act on the part of Mayor Mike Natomagan of the Northern Village of Pinehouse. Mayor Natomagan has refused to release documentation requested under the Act despite the urgings of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in a public report released last November.

The statement of claim comes in response to the Mayor and Village Council’s persistent failure to respond to two Freedom of Information Requests filed in April 2013 by Valerie Zink, then-Editor/Publisher of Briarpatch Magazine. The requests were submitted as part of ongoing research for an investigative story by Saskatoon-based journalist and researcher D’Arcy Hande on a controversial agreement between the Village of Pinehouse, Kineepik Métis Local #9, and uranium giants Cameco and Areva for mining contracts valued at approximately $200 million.

On November 18, 2013, Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner Gary Dickson released a Review Report recommending that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General “consider prosecution pursuant to section 56(3) of The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in respect to the refusal of the Northern Village of Pinehouse to comply with a lawful requirement of the Commissioner.”

More than 250 days have now passed since the FOI requests were first filed. Seeing no action on the part of the province, the plaintiffs have proceeded as individual citizens with a statement of claim that seeks to hold the Village Council accountable to its obligations under the Act.

“Mayor Natomagan has had ample opportunity to comply with a straightforward request for documents pertaining to monies paid by Cameco and Areva,” says D’Arcy Hande.

“We know that Cameco and Areva have paid large amounts of money to the Village council and its subsidiary Corportion, Pinehouse Business North,” says Valerie Zink. “Pinehouse residents deserve to know where these infusions of cash are going, and what strings are attached.”

Press Conference: Tuesday January 28th at 11:00AM, Court House, 2425 Victoria Avenue, Regina

For more information:

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/announcem ... -pinehouse ]


Media Contacts:

Valerie Zink - 306.209.9110 - valeriezink@gmail.com

Andrew Loewen - 306.525.2949 - andrew@briarpatchmagazine.com

- - -

Further Information:

Review Report from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner
[ http://www.oipc.sk.ca/Reports/Review%20 ... 13-004.pdf ]

“Courting collaboration,” Briarpatch Magazine, November/December 2013
[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/ ... laboration ]

Pinehouse in the News:

“Privacy Commissioner says Pinehouse remiss,” StarPhoenix, November 25, 2013
[ http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Priv ... story.html ]

“Uranium’s chilling effects,” The Media Coop, November 21, 2013
[ http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/uraniums- ... ects/19083 ]

“Legal actions challenges uranium industry agreement,” The Media Coop, June 25, 2013
[ http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/legal-act ... ment/18099 ]

“Pinehouse residents denounce nuclear waste, uranium mining at Idle No More workshop,” Prince Albert Daily Herald, March 11, 2013
[ http://www.paherald.sk.ca/News/2013-03- ... workshop/1 ]

“‘Collaboration Agreement’ with uranium giants sparks opposition in northern Saskatchewan,” Council of Canadians, December 3, 2012
[ http://www.canadians.org/node/3354 ]


+ + + + + + + +



RE: HANDE: Advancing Agenda

From: Debbie Mihalicz
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2014 11:27 AM
Subject: “Advancing Agenda” Star Phoenix August 22, 2014 by D'Arcy Hande (Below)

As a U of S Senator, my role is to provide a window from the University to the people of Saskatchewan and vice versa.

Please be aware of what is happening at our People's University - our supposed center of higher learning and free thinking - and provide me with any feedback you may have on this.

- - - -

D'Arcy Hande worked for almost thirty years as an Archivist for the Government of Saskatchewan and is now retired. He is a go-to for research on various topics and has been extensively published in Briarpatch Magazine and Media Co-op.

-Debbie Mihalicz

"The simple step of a courageous individual is to not take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

- - - - -

“Advancing Agenda”

[ http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/toda ... story.html ]

by D'Arcy Hande, The Starphoenix August 22, 2014

How charming to read the op-ed piece, Nuclear innovation benefits Canada (SP, Aug. 21) by Neil Alexander.

It is interesting to note that, amid the host of fiscal and administrative catastrophes that have hit University of Saskatchewan recently, the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation still has ample resources to carry out the Uranium Development Partnership, which was clearly rejected by the Saskatchewan public in 2009.

The resumé of Alexander, the new (University of Saskatchewan) Canadian Center for Nuclear Innovation executive director, reads like a corporate wish list for promoting small nuclear reactors and nuclear waste repositories in Saskatchewan and beyond. (News release with details below.)

Let's face it. This program, paid for almost entirely by taxpayer and nuclear industry dollars but strategically placed in a university setting to enhance its credibility, is meant to serve the expansion of the uranium/nuclear industry. Nothing more, nothing less.

D'Arcy Hande
Saskatoon
____________

From: "D'Arcy Hande" <hande.dk@sasktel.net>
Date: 21 August, 2014 7:07:07 AM

[News release:] “New Executive Director for Fedoruk Centre”

[ http://www.fedorukcentre.ca/news/news-r ... rector.php ]

“[Dr.] Alexander comes to the Fedoruk Centre from Rolls-Royce Civil Nuclear Canada, where he has been President and General Manager since 2011. Prior to that, he served in a number of senior executive roles in the Canadian nuclear industry, including as president of the Organization of CANDU Industries and as vice-president of business development with SNC-Lavalin Nuclear.

With a Ph.D. in metallurgy from the University of Birmingham (UK), he has extensive management experience in the design and manufacture of equipment used in radioisotope production, nuclear power plants, and the safe handling of spent nuclear fuel.”
_____

Hello folks,

With so much happening at our beloved University of Saskatchewan this summer, I certainly did not pick up on any news coming out from the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation that a new, industry-minded executive director had been appointed effective July 1st.

But in this morning’s Saskatoon StarPhoenix appears the gratuitous op-ed piece above, promoting the benefits of the nuclear industry for Canada, spinning as always the advances in nuclear medicine, but ending up by pitching small nuclear reactors as the wave of the future.

What is most disturbing is that this whole agenda is being touted by Karen Chad, U of S Vice-President of Research, and by Bill Boyd (remember the Uranium Development Project five years ago?), the Saskatchewan Party Government’s Minister responsible for Innovation Saskatchewan, but also Minister of the Economy, Energy and Resources and Minister responsible for SaskPower.

So folks, the U of S may be falling apart at the seams from administrative incompetence, but it still has time to look out for the interests of the nuclear industry. Our job is definitely not finished.

D'Arcy Hande
Box 32040, Erindale P.O.
Saskatoon, SK S7S 1N8
CANADA

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” ― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

[Oscar]

COLLIER: COMMENT: RE: Advancing Agenda

-----Original Message-----
From: KEN COLLIER
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 5:25 PM
To: Elaine Hughes
Subject: Re: "Advancing Agenda" Star Phoenix August 22, 2014 by D'Arcy Hande

Not surprising at UofS (my original alma mater). When I first attended UoS, the president was JWT Spinks, a nuclear physicist well-connected with the nuclear industry, with all its military links. He also played a role getting the nuclear research institute there (at USask.).

When I attended USask, I was active in the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CUCND). We had many demos against nuclear power, nuclear weapons, war in general etc. FYI, Roy Romanow was pro-nuke in his campus and eventual NDP politics. As Sask. Attorney General (before he became premier) he retroactively changed the law to let a nuclear mining company off the hook for pollution and environmental damage.

Sylvia Fedoruk worked as a nuclear researcher at USask before her days as UofS Chancellor.

Ken Collier,
Mission, BC

[Oscar]

See also: RELENTLESS PURSUIT of the nuclear industry in Sask.


[ http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/vie ... php?t=1525 ]

[Oscar]

The Pinehouse Collaboration Agreement with Uranium Firms A deal lacking transparency and accountability

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/ ... -agreement ]

BY D’ARCY HANDE • JUN 3, 2015

A deal lacking transparency and accountability

It has now been two and half years since the Northern Village of Pinehouse (population 1,400) and Kineepik Metis Local Inc. signed a collaboration agreement with the uranium mining companies Cameco and Areva in December 2012. But many questions remain about the negotiation process that led up to that agreement and the subsequent flow of money into the community. A protracted Freedom of Information (FOI) request process initiated more than two years ago (April 2013) has finally concluded, with mixed results.

MORE:

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/ ... -agreement ]


- -

D’Arcy Hande, a retired archivist and historian, has keenly followed the uranium industry’s activity in Saskatchewan since the Saskatchewan Party government launched the Uranium Development Partnership in 2008. A long-time opponent of the promotion of nuclear power as sustainable energy, he paid close attention to the negotiation of the collaboration agreement between Cameco and Areva and the Village of Pinehouse, and interviewed many of the agreement’s foremost opponents in Pinehouse. In June 2013, he joined 38 other plaintiffs in challenging the agreement at the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.