By Dr. Gordon Edwards

When "informed" that depleted uranium, the stuff left over from the enrichment of uranium for use as fuel in nuclear reactors, is being used by the US military for weapons, the Government of Canada sanctimoniously intones that it is the "principle of fungibility" at work -- the uranium atoms are all blended together, some from Canada, some from Australia, some from South Africa, some from the USA -- and the "stuff" that is used for weapons is deemed to be American stuff and therefore OK.

It was Joe Clark, in one of his rare moments of real wit, who said in the House of Commons (decades ago!): "It sounds to me like the principle of fudge-ability, not fungibility."

Clark was referring to the fact that depleted uranium, left over from the enrichment process, has been used for military purposes for decades -- not just to make DU munitions, as it is used now, but to make the plutonium for nuclear warheads in special "military production reactors", and to amplify the explosive power of H-bombs by using DU as a tertiary nuclear explosive.

The American military simply helps itself to the DU for whatever it needs, and uses it for weapons. Never mind that a significant proportion is of Canadian origin.

How does Canada reconcile this with the provisions of the bilateral agreement that stipulates that Canadian-origin nuclear materials must not be used for bombs? Simple. They insist, contrary to elementary logic, that it isn't happening. They point to the fact that there is more than enough DU that is NOT being used for weapons to account for the Canadian "component" of the uranium supply!

This morally bankrupt version of a ledger-book mentality would never be accepted if the country in question was (say) North Korea, or Pakistan, or Iran. Would Canada accept a situation in which it was sending uranium to these countries for enrichment and they were routinely using the DU for nuclear and non-nuclear weapons? I think not!

In fact, during the Cold War years, when Canada sent uranium to the USSR (Riga in Latvia) for enrichment, the USSR was NOT ALLOWED to keep the DU for precisely this reason. When the USSR sent the enriched uranium fuel to the customer, they had to ALSO send the DU -- even though the customer didn't really want it -- because of the military usefulness of the DU.

See my 1985 article "Fuelling the Nuclear Arms Race" http://www.ccnr.org/non_prolif.html

Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine that the bank that you deal with is investing in a brutal totalitarian regime that is a pariah to all right-thinking individuals. Indignantly, you go to the bank manager and say that you want to stop doing business with them because you don't want any of your money going to support this regime's activities.

The bank manager says, "Oh no, m'sieur, you misunderstand.
We are not using your money. Your money is safe in the vault
-- come and see!" And he leads you into the vault where there is money galore -- obviously more than your deposits add up to. So you decide to keep dealing with the bank and say to yourself you are fully justified to close your eyes to the bank's odious investments, for it evidently has nothing to do with you.

But the bank manager tells ALL his customers the same thing. Apparently, NO ONE's money is being used for these unethical investments. It is the perfect crime.

That's what is happening with uranium that is ostensibly Canadian in origin. In fact EVERY uranium mine in the world can claim that ITS uranium output is for peaceful purposes only, even though large amounts of uranium are being used for military purposes all the time, and has been for many decades. It is a policy of total ethical irresponsibility based on a hypocritical double standard.

If those in the civilian nuclear industry were truly interested in making the world a better and safer place and building a sustainable future, they should be the first to insist that nuclear weapons have to be completely abolished and that military use of uranium should not be condoned. Even Henry Kissinger has joined with George Schulz and other past officials of US governments to say that nuclear weapons have to be totally eliminated if we are to have any hope for a sustainable future.
El-Baradei, head of the IAEA, says the world is on the brink of a nuclear abyss -- not because of the terrorists or the rogue states, but because of the refusal of USA, Russia, UK, China, France to abolish their nuclear arsenals.

But the Canadian Government and the nuclear industry says nothing, ever, against it, invoking the "principle of fungibility" to justify their silence. As Ghandi said, it is not only the bad acts of bad people, but the appalling indifference of the good people that sustains the world in patterns of injustice.