Zuzak GRC Report; Wed., June 01, 2005

(1) Presentations relevant to revocation of citizenship to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration are being archived at
http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/cimm05/cimm05.html
Since last month’s report, excerpts from meetings #46, 48, 51, 53 and 57 have been archived. Particularly positive are the verbal presentations of Irene Rooney, daughter of Helmut Oberlander, and Ulrich Frisse of the German Canadian Congress. Particularly negative attitudes were expressed by Kenneth Narvey of the Five Montreal Synagogues and Victor Goldbloom and Eric Vernon of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Thus far, CIMM has held three in-camera meetings #61 - #63 (May 17-31, 2005) to consider a draft report on Citizenship Revocation. It is to be hoped that members of the Ukrainian community are on top of the situation.

(2) The d&d cases of Josef Furman (Edmonton) and Yura Skomatchuk (St. Catharines) appear to have entered a state of hibernation. The Federal Court informed the “government” that the actions against these two gentlemen would be dismissed unless the “government” responded by April 25, 2005. The “government’s” response was to suggest that these actions be referred to a “Case Management Judge”, which presumably occurred.

(3) A Google search for “Samuel Bodman + Pettigrew” yields about 20 hits indicating that the United States Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman, and Canadian Foreign Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) on Mar. 30, 2005 to shut down “weapons-grade plutonium production reactors” in the former Soviet Union.
http://canada.news.designerz.com/us-canadian-accord-aims-to-eliminate-russian-plutonium-producer.html

On May 26, 2005, Mr. Bodman paid a two-day visit to Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s nuclear program.
http://www.sgpproject.org/Personal%20Use%20Only/USUKRBodman.html

I view with suspicion indiscriminate use of such terminology as nuclear security; dirty bombs from waste fuel produced by terrorists; handover of Soviet-produced enriched nuclear fuel to Russia; converting reactors to low-enriched fuel; etc. In the past, the United States has proved unreliable in meeting its commitments to Ukraine with respect to giving up its nuclear weapons; funding to upgrade and build new nuclear reactors; design and construction of a new sarcophagus for the Chornobyl reactor; etc. The United States has a stranglehold on the world’s oil and natural gas supplies; it appears to want to establish a similar stranglehold on nuclear fission reactor technology.

On the other hand, I support Yulia Tymoshenko’s initiative to conduct a feasibility study for a domestic nuclear fuel-reprocessing program in Ukraine.

[My background is in nuclear fission (Atomic Energy of Canada during the 1970s) and in nuclear fusion (Canada’s fusion program at the Centre Canadien de Fusion Magnetique during the 1980s-90s). Shortly after the Chornobyl disaster on Apr. 26, 1986, (when I was helping David Marples to contact AECL personnel for material for his book), I suggested that Canada take the initiative in approaching Ukraine to adapt Canadian CANDU technology using heavy water and natural uranium to replace their outmoded RBMK technology. Unfortunately, AECL took a passive attitude by claiming that a similar accident could not happen in a CANDU reactor, rather than aggressively promoting Canadian technology. Perhaps after a delay of 20 years AECL would be more interested in such collaboration.]

In my opinion, Ukraine has little choice but to develop its own nuclear fission technology to lessen its reliance on oil and gas from the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian community in Canada should promote Canada-Ukraine collaboration in this area.

Respectfully yours
Will Zuzak, 2005-06-01