We have joined thousands of other Strait residents in urging our Provincial Government to continue to denounce federal plans to perpetuate the deployment of weapons of mass destruction so close to high density civilian populations.  These tests involve mainly U.S. nuclear powered and nuclear-armed submarines and entail a closing off of a large part of the Strait to civilian boat traffic.  The World Court has ruled that nuclear arms are illegal and that the use or even the threat of use of nuclear weapons constitutes a war crime.

The weapons testing and dumping going on in the Whiskey Golf Test Range, just a few  kilometers from Sechelt, is part of an extremely dangerous and  irrational military system which refuses to go away despite the end of the cold war. Everything has changed in the 1990's except American military paranoia.  The U.S. stockpile of nuclear, biological and  chemical  Weapons of Mass Destruction (WOMDs) exceeds, in destructive power, those of all of the other nations of the world combined and still the Pentagon wants more.   President Clinton recently announced massive increases in military spending in spite of widespread homelessness, millions of Americans without basic medical insurance coverage and huge, unattended environmental problems including vast and growing amounts of nuclear waste from weapons production.

U.S. trident nuclear submarines patrol the oceans around the clock and are capable of eradicating the Earth at the push of a button.  In spite of the accident-prone history of ballistic nuclear submarines, Ottawa continues to press for a renewal of the Nanoose testing agreement, which allows these behemoths access to one of the most populated regions of  Canada.

Robert McNamara, formerly the US secretary of defence, become a passionate nuclear
disarmer, now believes  nuclear weapons are simply too dangerous to be left in man's fallible hands.  General George Lee Butler, former commander of US Strategic Air Command, now works for total nuclear arms abolition. According to Butler: "It is simply wrong, morally speaking, for any mortal to be invested with the authority to call into question the survival of the human race."

Thousands of British Columbians living in and around the Strait of Georgia have signed petitions in support the provincial government's ending the Nanoose weapons range lease.   We urge all local residents to phone the Premier's office toll-free (1-800-663-7867) and to urge him to stand firm.  Please call MP John Reynolds (1-800-665-6004) and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (1-800-667-3355) and ask them to oppose the presence of  nuclear weapons in the Strait of Georgia.

      In peace

      Denise and Roger Birklein-Lagassé
      for the Sunshine Coast Peace Group