Re: “Indian PM calls for global terror response,” April 16.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper looked delighted when signing a deal with his counterpart Narendra Modi, supplying uranium to fuel nuclear-power facilities in India.
Coming on the heels of Harper’s strong condemnation of Iran, which is trying to put its own nuclear-power program in place, it seems somewhat illogical that he shows such support for India, which, along with North Korea, Pakistan and Israel, is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Surely, he remembers that India first tested a nuclear device called “Smiling Buddha” about 40 years ago, by using plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor. Now there will be 3,000 tonnes of uranium shipped from Saskatchewan over the next five years.
Is it a tad cynical to surmise that it could be anything to do with the upcoming election, that Harper has chosen to accompany the popular Modi on a three-day cross-Canada odyssey to visit cities that have large populations of politically savvy Indo-Canadians?
Bernie Smith
Parksville
