National Letter Writing Coalition

By Doug Mohr | 1986-04-01 12:00:00

This month's letter writing suggestion comes from the Nanoose Conversion Campaign. You can write them at 225-285 Prideaux St., Nanaimo, B.C., or phone 604/754-3815.

Nanoose Bay is the site of Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR). (See "People's Enquiry," this issue.) In a two month period alone last summer, Nanoose was visited five times by U.S. nuclear attack subs. The new Los Angeles class subs (which were at Nanoose 4 times in 1985) are being fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles: Each of these subs carries a potential 120 Hiroshimas. Over the next few years, the U.S. Navy plans to put Tomahawks on all of its surface ships and subs. The deployment of cruise missiles, which can attack land-based targets, threatens to turn all U.S. subs into strategic weapons platforms, jeopardizing possibilities for arms control agreements.

Nanoose Bay displays the Canadian contention that ignorance is bliss: The U.S. refuses to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons on its vessels, and our government refuses to ask. Yet other countries do more than ask: New Zealand now denies access within miles of its coast to any ship containing nuclear weapons, and the People's Republic of China has extracted a promise from the U.S. that it will not bring nuclear weapons into its harbors. Obviously Canada could be taking a more independent position.

To support the work of the Nanoose Conversion Campaign, write to the following: Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Defence Minister Erik Nielsen, External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, your M.P., Pauline Jewitt, and the leaders of the opposition parties.

If your group is interested in becoming part of the NLWC, or to suggest recipients of letters, contact NLWC, P.O. Box 43, 70 King Street N., Waterloo, Ont. N2J 3Z6.