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--/ A woman pauses in front of a memoriakat Vancouve Art'=:n May 28. GrganizeTs co11ecteammren s slioes to- raw awareness to 215 bodies of children confirmed to be buried near Kamloops Indian Residential School. Photo by Jen SI. Denis.
MPs unanimously agreed to wrap up debate on Bill C-5 (creating national day for truth and reconciliation) on Friday, fast-tracking its passage and sending it on to the Senate. The move comes a day after a First Nation in B.C. confirmed discovery of the remains of215 children buried in unmarked graves on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, It will get a lot uglier as the churches and governments are confronted again and again with hard evidence of gross criminality. The official number of children dying while at residential school is 4,100, but others have put the number at over 50,000. The 215 bodies discovered in Kamloops were undocumented and this is likely the tip of the iceberg. For those seeking a broader coverage and context of this, go to The Tyee online . •
The People's Budget 604 is a project of the Defund 604 Network. We stand in solidarity with Indigenous self-determination and organize on the unceded territories of the x m;:)9kw;:)y;:)m (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), salilwotar! (Tsleil- Waututh), Q'e'yc'ey (Katzie), Qw'?ntl'en (Kwantlen) kwikw;:)A;:)m (Kwikwetlem), qiqeyt (Quay Quayt), and St6:15 peoples. It's time we all had a say in spending 50% of the Vancouver Police Department's almost-halfa-billion-dollar-bloated-budgetl Why does the VPD get $340,901,000 every year to police and criminalize communities already made vulnerable by systemic injustice? Especially when there are humane, compassionate, and frankly, way more fiscally effective ways to create safe and healthy communities. Have your say! Fill out the survey today by going to this link https:lllinktr.ee/ DefundNetwork or attend a session on the patio at the Camegie Centre on June 14th from 9-4. W
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Around the world, communities are calling for public money to be divested from police and policing, and re -invested in building safe, healthy, and sustainable communitie for everyone. The People's Budget 604 survey asks about your priorities for spending public money in the City of Vancouver. This survey is anonymous and all information shared will be held. confidentially. What you share with us during the survey will be used to create resources to foster a better understanding of the needs of communities left out of current City of Vancouver budget consultations -- particularly those who have been underserved, over-policed, and purposefully marginalized.
will triumph Some will fall Down for a while. And some for eternity. Everyone is waiting. It can be boring, tedious, Leaving some feeling defeated. None-the-less we continue. Onward forth. Looking around. Searching for, trying to find Ourselves. Individuals. Upset and hopeful. Many showing caution, Careful to do what we can While being as normal as possible. A new normal until we arrive at the normal After the pandemic is over. Geeta Shinde
Hello Arts & Health and Alumni groups ..Since we can't gather for our annual Exhibition and Gala Showcasethis year, we're planning online celebrations! You, friends and family are warmly
invited
to join
for virtual
studio
visits
and more.
All events
are FREE!
Virtual
Open Studios: Arts & Health and Alumni groups open online "doors"
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Conference Call with the Moberly Storytellers and Alyssa Harms-Wiebe (telephone) Tuesday, June 1", 9:30-10:30 Call Oliver at 604.718.6.521 to register Virtual Open Studio Quirk-e- Seniors' Week (Zoom) Tuesday, June Lst. 11:00am- 1:00pm Click here to re.gister- link will be emaifed to you. Virtual Open Studio Sound and Song- Seniors' Week (Zoom) Tuesday, June 1, 1:30-2:45pm.
Click here to register - link will be emailed to you.
Virtual Improv Theatre with Amy and Jeft- Seniors' Week (Zoom). Wednesday, June 2, 3:00-4:00pm Vir
U2!
Click here to register - link will bE'emailE'd to you.
r-...1oving Stor-res \."!1th /ero nlca Be"-ezo\-vsky- Se"1:c""s' ""leek..
Thurs dav. June 3, 10:15-11:30am
{ZOOfP.~
Click here to register - link will be emailed to you.
Virtual Elders' Arts with Todd Devries- Seniors' Week (Zoom) Thursday, June 3, 1:30-4:00pm
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Virtual Creative Dance with D.ezzaDance- Seniors' Week (Zoom) Friday. June 4,12:30-2:00 Arts & Health Virtual
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Tea- Seniors' Week (Zoom)
Friday. June 4,2:15-4:15
pm Pop in by video or phone to say hello to your Arts & Health
friends. Click here to register-
link will be emailed to you.
To register fo~ online events, click on the hyperlinks above, or call 604.713.1801. events are FREE.For more information: ARTS 8. HEALTH
Thank you to our parroee-a: Abe rtbeu-vvest CommunIty Services Centre. ce eoenre CUltural Ce-ra-e. Roundhouse
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Point Grey Community
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Community Centre Association. l\I~oberlyAr rs &
Community Arts & Recreation Centre, Stratbco ne
Community ce nrre , scos.e r Community Associatio,." Tsleil-Wa.un.:th Exchange.
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info@artsandhealth.ca
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OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER JUSTlN TRUDEAU
May 25, 2021 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A OA2 justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca Re: US experts concerned that Canadian support for extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is undermining the global nuclear-weapons nonproliferation regime Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, We write as US nonproliferation experts and former government officials and advisors with related responsibilities to express our concern about your government's financial support ofMoltex - a startup company that proposes to reprocess CANDU spent fuel to recover its contained plutonium for use in molten-salt-cooled reactors. 1 We understand your government's motivation to support nuclear power and to reduce fossil fuel use but saving the world from climate disaster need not be in conflict with saving it from nuclear weapons. Also, like other reprocessing efforts, Moltex, even in the R&D stage, would create a costly legacy of contaminated facilities and radioactive streams and require substantial additional government funding for cleanup and stabilization prior to disposal.
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Our main concern is that, by backing spent-fuel reprocessing and plutonium extraction, the government of Canada will undermine the global nuclear weapons nonproliferation regime that Canada has done so much to strengthen. Canada is a founding member ofthe Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was established in 1974 in response to India's misuse of a Canada-supplied research reactor and US-supplied reprocessing technology to acquire the plutonium needed for . its first nuclear weapons." Today, Japan is the only non-nuclear-armed state that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel, causing both domestic and intematipnal controversy. Other countries could point to Canada's support of the Moltex program to help justify their own reprocessing R&D, The fuel cycle Moltex proposes appears to be based on pyroprocessing, a technology developed by the US Argonne National Laboratory. Moltex echoes the Argonne developers in calling this technology "proliferation resistant." A 2009 review by nonproliferation experts from six US national laboratories including Argonne concluded, however, that pyroprocessing is about as susceptible to misuse for proliferation as PUREX, the standard reprocessing technology used worldwide in both nuclear-weapon and civilian plutonium programs.' Pyroprocessing is being used at the US Idaho National Laboratory to process fuel from the shutdown US Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-2 for disposal but has proved to be extremely costly and unreliable and has not produced stable forms of radioactive waste suitable for deep underground disposal. 4 In contrast, CANDU spent fuel is a stable waste form suitable for disposal." .
Fifty years ago, the US Atomic Energy Commission was promoting reprocessing worldwide as essential to the future of nuclear power, which it saw as requiring a rapid shift to plutonium breeder reactors. In 1974, however, India tested its first nuclear weapon design using plutonium produced with technologies and materials that Canada and the United States had provided exclusively for peaceful use by India's breeder reactor program. The US subsequently discovered that Brazil, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan - all under military governments at the tune - were going down the same dangerous path. Fortunately, it was possible to derail all those other reprocessing efforts, although Pakistan did acquire nuclear weapons via uranium enrichment. This experience inspired a White-House-led review of the case for breeder reactors and plutonium fuels that found they were not needed and unlikely to be competitive with reactors operating on a once-through fuel cycle. President Carter announced in 1977 that the US would indefinitely defer reprocessing and breeder commercialization." This conclusion has been confirmed by the failure to date of all breeder commercialization programs worldwide. Moltex claims that the removal of plutonium and other long-lived transuranic elements from CANDU spent fuel would reduce the long-term risk from a deep underground radioactive waste repository, That claim has been discredited repeatedly, starting with an in-depth review by the US National Academy of Sciences published in 1996.7 Plutonium and other transuranic oxides are relatively insoluble in deep underground anoxic water and poorly absorbed by both plants and animals including humans through the gut wall. As a result, the risk from leakage from underground repositories would likely be dominated by more mobile and absorbable long-lived radioisotopes such as the 17-million-yem· half-life fission product, iodule-129, which, ifnot released to the environment during reprocessing, would remain in the radioactive waste. Before Canada makes any further commitments in SUPPOltof reprocessing, we urge you to convene high-level reviews of both the nonproliferation and envll·oIll~entalunplicati011S of Moltex's reprocessing proposal including independent international experts. We believe such reviews 'will find reprocessing to be counterproductive on both fronts. Signatories to this letter 011 the following page with affiliations and former US government positions. Contact: Frank ~N von Hippel, Princeton University.
cc. Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIA OA6. Cluvstia.Freeland@pm'l.gc,ca Marc Gameau, Minister of Foreign Affairs, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIA OA6. Marc.Garneau@parl.gc,ca Erin O'Toole, leader of the Conservative Party, House OfCOlm11011S, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIA OA6 <Elin.OToole@parl.gc.ca>, Yves-Francois Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIA OA6 <Yves-Frmlcois,Blmlchet@pm'l.gc,ca>, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIA OA6 <Jagmeet.Singh@parl.gc.ca>, Annamie Paul, leader of the Green Party of Canada, PO Box 997, Station B, Ottawa, ON KIP SRI, <leader@greenpm'ty,ca>
Matthew Bunn, Jarries R, Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy, Co-Princ ipal Irrvestigator, Proj ect on Managing the Atorn, Hal'vard Kennedy SchooL * ThOD1asCountryman, Former US Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation (20 11-~ 7), Steve Fetter, Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland, * former principal assistant director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House (2009-12, 2015-17) Robert L, Gallucci, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplornacy, Georgerown Urriversity, * Former Ambassador at Lar'ge and Assistant Secretary of State for Pofitical-Mrlitary Affairs (1992-2001), Richard L, Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, IBM Thomas J, Watson Research Center, * rnernber U,S, President's Science .Advisory COD1D1ittee frorn 1962-65, 1969-72, Alan J, Kuperrnan, Associate Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Coordinator, Nuclear Protiferation Prevention Project (w"'w,NPPP,Ol'g), University of Texas at Austin, * former Congressional staff (1989-93), C
Henry Sokolski, Executive Du'ector, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, * Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense (1989-93) Sharon Squassoni, Research Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, * former nonproliferation specialist with the US State Department and Congr-essional Research Service, '' Frank von Hippel, Senior Research Physicist and Professor' of Public and International .Affsrir's emeritus, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeron Uruversrty, * Assistant Director for National Seour'ity, Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House (1993-4),
Attention
Carnegie Newsletter
Hello, I would like to thank your publication for having done so much to promote the literary legacies of impoverished people, I myself lived right on the second floor ofthat apartment building situated across from The Camegie Centre from June 1,1998 until August 31,1998, Upon moving in, I had assumed that I would be living in an inexpensive, safe environment That was not the case, During those three months, I worked at two different part-time jobs, No, I was not a sex worker or even a moderately famous feminist activist In fact, I worked in white-collar office environments where I had to dress real well and maintain a faux middle-class composure, , Every morning and every night, I looked down into those streets from my apartment and saw horrible things such as young girls sprawled out on the sidewalk, slowly dying, all used up and thrown away, I also saw people not just shooting up but stabbing various parts of their bodies with syringes, At night, I couldn't get any sleep because of those blood-curdling screams beyond my window - screams of the dying and of those who were raging to stay alive, . No major media publication in this city, not even the
slick glossy ones, ever cast any light on the horrific aftermath of injustice festering in this socalled "World Class" city. The song that best describes the frustration I experienced during the Summer of 1998 is "Heartbreaker" by The Rolling Stones. Speaking of monikers, I congratulate you on awarding "Ruby Diamond" a first prize for her poetry several seasons ago. I knew her many years back at SFU. Back then she encouraged me to sing my poetry and she also generously made tapes of my really amateurish droning non sequiturs of the time. I have since then (the early 90's), gone on to make improvements to my vocalized creativity. Performing Mozart's Requiem with The Willan Choir in 2006 was such an eu- . phoric experience. One does not have to be a paid professional to expand one's creative horizons. Therefore, I have enclosed a cheque in the amount of20 dollars, in Canadian funds, to your publication. Keep up the good work. And don't let any mean bastards get you down. I myself am happy to report that I have never been incarcerated in any prison, mental institution, or brothel. Time is on my side. Cheers, Raj Pannu
from 'the Library
For Aung San Suu Kyi [the Lady] and Her People
Well, well here I am writing my very first entry for the Camegie Newsletter. And who am I? I'm Danielle LaFrance the new Branch Head for the Camegie Library Branch (among other things of course!). I'm really looking forward to connecting with readers of the Camegie Newsletter. You might remember seeing me out and about as the Community Librarian for the DTES, Strathcona and Chinatown communities or on the desk at nocarmat et Strathcona Branch. Prior to working at the library, I worked at the Insite Supervised Injection Site. In my role as the Branch Head I work alongside a dynamic and fun team who are committed to working with people to strengthen community building and healing through horizontal cooperation. I value the idea that when you are working with community you are the community, and that politics are inseparablefrom thinking and feeling and living in any situation. For those wondering about usual Camegie Newsletter suspect Daniel, he'll be working with Vancouver Public Library's new Writer in Residence Lindsay Wong until July. Lindsay is known for her fearless writing and askew sense of humour as she chronicles adventures and disasters with copious amounts of playfulness and generosity. Her bestselling debut memoir, The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family, won the 2019 Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize and was named one of the Best Books of 20 18 by Newsweek, , CBCBooks, Globe and Mail, and Quill and Quire. Her recently released novel, My Summer of Love and Misfortune, is set in the decadent world of high-society Beijing and has been called Confessions of a Shopaholk meets Crazy Rich Asians. "Sharing my knowledge and insight with aspiring writers and the community is something I'm deeply committed to," says Wong. "During my residency, I invite prose writers of all levels and experiences to consult with me in the genres of YA, memoir, and fiction in one-on-one manuscript consultations via Zoom. New voices, especially from BIPOC, immigrant, and marginalized groups, are especially welcome. I' 11also be working on a collection of short stories that blends magical realism and absurd comedy into stories of immigration." ~~ Danielle
Walk toward the light, Lady. Friends from afar beseech your government to free you and your people; to open the doors; to pave the way for social justice; to a newfound freedom of justice. Peace and harmony are woven into the ribbons of floating saffron. The Elders at the table await your presence. "Walk on."
Barbara Morrison
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