interview by Heather Mahony

Early SPECtre David Garrick was at the forefront of perhaps one of the most significant and precedent setting Initiatives for environmental protection in the 1970s.  His diligent activism in coordinating community groups from all over the province pressured the provincial government to hold a Royal Commission into uranium mining, milling and exploration. The result was  the expulsion of uranium companies from B.C. and spin offs in other jurisdictions where uranium mining was also completely banned.  Throughout the last three decades, David Garrick has worked tirelessly on environmental and native justice issues.  His trip to Wounded Knee,South Dakota during the 1973 occupation  solidified his conviction and his life’s work.
 
“After that experience I saw that my life would be involved in native justice issues as they pertain to ecology,” Garrick said.  That belief has persisted to David’s life today on Hansen Island where he researches culturally modified trees.

David’s association with SPEC began when Greenpeace was  working out of  SPEC ‘s Fourth Ave. offices in 1975 and ‘76.
 “Greenpeace was trying to discover itself while working out of the SPEC office. We were a grassroots organization of hippies who thought up weird schemes like  finding the Russian whaling fleet and sitting in front of  harpoons in a zodiac.  That was an affirming process, because when Greenpeace actually pulled this off, people said  we can dream up anything and act on it.”
 
In the 1970s David  looked at   energy policies and  how developments in response to the energy crisis of 1973 were affecting Native People. “City dwellers had no idea what was going on and  believed the propaganda that  we need independence from the Arabs. So to make changes in North America required going into the countryside to mega projects; cataloguing, describing and dealing with them.”

David’s connections with South Dakota, which was undergoing  uranium exploration,  led to  “cross-pollination of experience” with  Wounded Knee.  When Uranium companies came to B.C.  in 1977 and ‘78, David was able to frame  the issue within an   international context. As uranium was heating us as a BC issue, Garrick ran into political trouble at Greenpeace with Patrick Moore. Garrick resigned having prepared the groundwork for Greenpeace’s nuclear Initiatives.

Meanwhile uranium companies undertook  a systematic reconnaissance of BC. “Within a number of months,” David said, “  40 properties across the province were identified as having mine potential.”  David approached SPEC’s  Cliff Stainsby and Cathy Fox about a uranium campaign. SPEC agreed. David became SPEC’s uranium campaign coordinator in the fall of 1977.  He wrote a 100-page fact sheet and called a meeting of   people experienced in nuclear issues.  They decided to push for a Royal Commission on uranium mining and exploration in the province.
 
Two main uranium sites were at Beaverdell near Rock Creek  on the Kettle River, the other was at Clearwater.  There were also  other sites, some in the weirdest places.

There is a deposit on Quadra Island where the ore is so hot you need a robot to handle it. It’s 30 per cent metallic uranium.

 “ BC was at a  crossroads in the development of uranium as a strategic resource. Until the mid 1970s, uranium was taken from lands which were remote; often native lands.  Where nobody is affected except  First Nations,  nobody knew about it.  And that was the case with uranium development everywhere.  A lot of Navajo uranium miners were dying from cancers. In  Australia it was the same thing.  But nobody put it all together.   BC development plans brought  uranium companies into the
back yards of non-native communities for the first time.  So this was a chance to not only bring this into the political forefront.”

A working group, including  SPEC, the Sierra Club, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and the Telkwa Foundation, held meetings in affected communities all over the province.  Residents in targeted areas “began to take things  personally” and set up their own local organizations.  Unions, teachers, the B.C. Medical Association, and West Coast Environmental Law got involved.  “ As it turned out, I was pretty much coordinating the whole thing, making sure it happened,” said David. “ We had a broad coalition of people coming from so many different levels,  we could mount a coordinated campaign that involved everything from civil disobedience, to street theater, with everything in between. We had volunteers going into parties where the mother of the Premier was serving tea and talking to people about uranium mining in their back yard and getting the Premier’s mum on board. We had people standing outside of churches giving out buttons.”

Eventually the Government gave in to public pressure and held a Royal Commission.  The working group,  including SPEC, made sure that certain conditions were met.  “We threatened to boycott if the mandate and so on were not correct.”
 In the end a Royal Commission headed by UBC Prof. of Medicine Dr. David Bates was set up to cover the entire issue. A  key concern was that Bates deal with not only mining, but also milling and exploration.  Another concern was that funds be  available for intervention by technical experts and lay people.  “We wanted the widows of uranium miners in Navajo country to be recognized as  lay experts and we forced the Government to go along with it.”  In the end $260, 000 was made available for intervenors.

The Environmental Alliance Against Uranium Mining (EAAUM), including SPEC, the Sierra Club, The Federation of B.C. Naturalists, the Telkwa Foundation, and Greenpeace,  was set up to intervene at the Commission. EAAUM’s office in the Dominion Building on  Hastings St. across from Victory Square was home to groups when they were in Vancouver.  “We set up a base where everybody could use  phones and fax machines. It worked  well.  We coordinated the groups and brought  in experts. The next step was to coordinate  everyone  who got  intervenor funds so we wouldn’t duplicate spending.  It was  tempting to  pay myself a salary, but had I done so other groups would  want paid coordinators.  So I thought we’ll run this thing and  take no money. All funds were spent on the issue.”
 
“It was a public issue,” said David.  “The effort of community groups from around the province simply overwhelmed the Commission. And we didn’t stop here. When the Commissioners went  to examine the industry in Australia, someone inside the Commission office slipped me their itinerary. I got that  to anti-nuke groups in Australia and the Commission was met at
the airport by  Aboriginals talking about death in their families.”

The level of public support was matched by the degree of information presented during the hearings. “There were technical hearings and community hearings. The technical phase was broken into sections.  The biggest, the environmental section,  never got underway.  We were so successful in the original  phases  in cross examining government and company witnesses that they couldn’t convince anybody it was safe to develop uranium at Clearwater and Beaverdell.  One of our witnesses, a tailings expert,  took the plans they had for the tailings facility and showed it would leach through.

“Meanwhile all these serendipitous events seemed to fall into place.  The largest tailing dam in the United States collapsed, spewing radioactive tailings. It was like -  thank you!!!  And then there was a collapse  in northern Saskatchewan.  So the companies tried to  outspend us and the government tried to  slough us off. But it didn’t work out. In the end public
opposition forced Premier Bill Bennett to give in.  “The Commission was getting too much information  obviously going
against the companies.  The government decided  rather than waste another million dollars finishing the inquiry, to  simply declare a moratorium on uranium development before  the environmental phase had begun.  So we never  presented all the information on the environment.  It is too bad.  I was  peeved, but in another sense, we were ecstatic.  The seven year moratorium has since expired, but no uranium company is ever going to come into BC.”
 
In the same year as the 1979  Royal Commission,  a  Black Hill Survival Gathering was hosted by the Sioux people near Wounded Knee. David attended with  80 other BC activists.
 
“It was an incredible forum that drew activists from around the world. We held uranium workshops at the Black Hills with people from Spain, Scotland, Australia and Saskatchewan.”

The significance of the Bates Commission was to bring uranium out of the closet,” said David.  “It was considered such a strategic military resource found  only in remote areas  that  nobody knew about it.  Once ordinary people found uranium crews staking out their back yards, this groundswell of opposition began to look  serious The record around the planet, the death of miners in Elliot Lake, Ont.  and New Mexico was out there.  It became a  health and  environment issue.  “The spin-off was great.  Uranium mining was banned in Labrador, Vermont, New Jersey and Spain.  It was  rolled back in Australia and never
happened in South Dakota. We had a tremendous impact on the planet.  The uranium working groups became the B.C. Energy Coalition which from 1979 to 1981 were able to mop up the energy issues in BC.”  “SPEC was punished as a result of the uranium campaign,” says David. “All the money dried up. We lost our grants. During the Royal Commission there were about a dozen people at SPEC getting $600 bucks a month. It paid rent and food.  Even that dried up after the Commission.
 
“It would be good if SPEC did an analysis of  energy and nuclear issues in B.C. It would determine how much average people  benefit from not having built the  reactors planned for Vancouver Island.  I don’t know  how much the average citizen has saved in taxes,  but I’m sure it’s close to $1000 a year per person.  Environmentalists were blamed at the time for fighting those projects. But look at people in Ontario. They’re still paying for their reactors. Aside from looking at the environmental degradation, the economics make no sense.”

In early 1979 David Garrick was sentenced to 45  days in  a Washington State jail for  protesting  US Navy Trident  nuclear submarines at Bangor, Wash.  SPEC is still campaigning to stop those same subs from testing
weapons at Nanoose Bay, north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

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Chalk One Up in the Win Column

From stopping nuclear reactors on Vancouver Island to banning the bomb, SPEC's 30-year-long nuke campaign is paying off.

by Norman Abbey

Lille d'Easum  almost single-handedly educated a whole generation of activists about  nuclear issues as a SPEC  campaigner before her death in 1980. She is remembered today in SPEC’s  Lille d'Easum Memorial Library,but her work set the pattern for efforts to stop nuclear energy and weapons use.

In 1994  SPEC president Paul Hundal was  concerned that  nuclear-powered and  nuclear-armed US Navy attack submarines  regularly pass Vancouver  on their way to  test weapons  at Nanoose Bay north of Nanaimo on Vancouver  Island.   Hundal asked Premier Mike Harcourt  for "..an Environmental Review of  the risks associated with allowing these mobile nuclear reactors to travel so close to our population."

That demand was repeated in 1997  by   current  SPEC president David Cadman who told Premier Glen Clark that  "SPEC believes a  Federal Court challenge by the Nanoose Conversion Campaign of toxic dumping by the US Navy at Nanoose Bay deserves your attention and support."

SPEC has worked closely with the Nanoose Conversion  Campaign which took federal Environment Minister Sergio Marchi to court for exempting US warships from Canadian environment regulations that prohibit ocean dumping of toxic substances. The US Navy has been testing torpedoes and other weapons at the Nanoose underwater test range for the past 25 years.  In the process they have dumped tons of lead, copper, lithium and other toxic materials into Georgia Strait.

Sierra Legal Defense Fund (SLDF) lawyer Jane Luke told a  Federal Court judge in Vancouver on Nov. 06, 1997, that Marchi’s exemption of  US Navy vessels from Canadian law violates both the spirit and intent of a Parliamentary statute. Luke pointed out that illegal dumping is a criminal offense and Canadians face heavy penalties for  dumping lead and other
toxics. The judge, however,  thought that the minister has the discretion to exempt US warships from Canadian law and is allowing the dumping to go on.  SLDF is appealing the decision.

On Feb. 26, 1998,SPEC nuclear campaigner Norman  Abbey flew to Ottawa where he appeared before the Parliamentary  Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT). The committee which includes NDP Svend Robinson, Liberal Ted McWhinney and Conservative senator Doug Roche,  was directed to review Canada's nuclear policy in light of a 1996 World Court  ruling that the threat of nuclear weapons is contrary to international law.

Explaining  that US Navy operations at Nanoose are "part and parcel of that threat”, Abbey argued that  U.S. policy  includes the  right to use nuclear weapons.   Abbey explained that Canada is the only country that still lets  US nuclear subs  regularly  est weapons.  Japan, Britain, the Philippines,  Italy and Spain have cancelled similar deals that used to see US nukes in their waters.  Abbey  asked the committee to cancel  the Canada-US Nanoose Agreement that allows US ships to test torpedoes in BC.

Abbey also asked the SCFAIT to scrap Prime Minister  Chretien's  scheme to import surplus weapons plutonium from the US and Russia and burn it in Ontario’s problem ridden Candu reactors.

On Dec. 10, 1998, the SCFAIT released a report that supported SPEC’s position. The committee recommended scrapping Chretien’s “totally unfeasible” plutonium experiment. More significantly, it  is urging Canada to “argue forcefully within NATO that the present reliance upon nuclear weapons must be re-examined and updated.” Foreign Affairs  Minister Axworthy has already indicated Canada will raise the matter at this Spring’s NATO summit in Brussels. If Axworthy  follows through on the
SCFAIT report, it would be a significant step towards victory in  the 40- year-long campaign to “Ban the Bomb.” It would also ally Canada with Germany’s radical new Green foreign minister  Joseph Fischer who will be pushing for the abolition of all nuclear weapons at Brussels.  The  down side of these  historic  events is that  Lille d’Easum is not alive to see  her  effort and  commitment achieving  results. In the environmental movement it can take  decades to make changes. It is all too easy to feel negative and assume nothing can be done. Lille never gave up. Nor did she  doubt the truth of her convictions.  Her life and work is proof that change, real change, is possible.

Norman Abbey  is SPEC’s nuclear  issues campaigner.  He  is also  a director of the  Nanoose Conversion Campaign.  In 1993 Norm and his 83-year-old mother Irene Abbey  were arrested at Clayoquot Sound.

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