by Maria Koropecky
The Ukrainian Weekly newspaper
Saturday, February 5, 2000, page 7
VICTORIA, B.C. — Nanoose Bay, home to the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR), has seen its share of political protests. This time, a group calling itself the Ukrainian Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada (UOAC) has become involved in the debate.
Situated on Vancouver Island in British Columbia about 120 kilomters north of Victoria, the provincial capital, Nanoose Bay has been used for decades by the Canadian and U.S. militaries as a torpedo-testing range. The 225-square kilometre site is considered ideal because the sea is only 366 metres deep and the soft muddy floor makes retrieving the unarmed torpedos easy.
Over the years, environmentalists, such as the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation, have said that the testing is polluting the waters by leaving piles of copper wire and lead-lithium batteries on the seabed. Anti-nuclear activists have risen the spectre of potential accidents involving U.S. nuclear-powered vessels and the attendant radiation contamination and increased cancer rates.
For the past several months, Archbishop Lazar Puhalo of the UOAC decided to add his voice by hiring a lawyer, Manuel Azevedo, and joining a coalition of activists that has taken the Canadian government to court over the ownership of the training site.
Archbishop Puhalo was quoted in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail daily that the UOAC "has worked with victims of the devastating explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 13 years ago," and said in a subsequent telephone interview that his motive in joining the coalition was that, "We don't want a miniature Chernobyl in Canada."
Archbishop Puhalo also told Globe reporter Robert Matas: "We're sensitive to the possibility of nuclear accidents and we''re not prepared to trust any government, especially the U.S. government."
"The military complex of a foreign nation has no business operating in Canada," Archbishop Puhalo added.
Archbishop Puhalo said he was born in Saskatchewan and that his roots are Ukrainian and Serbian. Currently, he lives in Dewdney, B.C. at a Ukrainian Orthodox monastary. The UOAC hierarch said he ws ordained by Patriarch Volodymyr Romaniuk in 1994, and asserts that his current title is Head of the Department of Missions and Evangelism of the Ukrainian Orthodox, Kyiv Patriarchate.
Canada's federal government had been renting the range from B.C.'s provincial government for a nominal cost of $1 per year. On September 4, 1999 the lease expired. Ottawa proposed to pay $4 million a year for 30 years, plus $5 million for the 1989-1999 period, totalling $125 million.
B.C., a province often at loggerheads with Ottawa over the years, was most recently seeking a bargaining chip in a simmering dispute over regional cross-border salmon fishing rights. Choosing to use the CFMETR in this fashion, it balked at the federal proposal.
Talks broke down in mid-May when then-B.C. Premier Glen Clark took a page from the activists' playbook, and demanded that the federal ministry guarantee that Nanoose Bay would remain free of nuclear weapons.
Because U.S. policy is neither to confirm nor deny whether or not its ships, planes, and submarines are carrying nuclear warheads, the Canadian government could not meet such conditions.
In an action described by Mr. Azevedo as "unprecedented," Ottawa decided to launch expropriation proceedings against the province for title of the seabed. Also, seeking to channel debate on the subject, the federal government hosted public hearings in various cities in Canada's westernmost province.
Archbishop Puhalo appeared at one such hearing and in a telephone interview later related his impression that "everyone's words fell on deaf ears." According to local newspaper reports, several of the hearings were also poorly attended by the public.
Meanwhile, representatives of the activist alliance have appeared in court six times since May 1999. The alliance filed a constitutional challenge in a B.C. court, asserting that the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to expropriate provincial lands for military purposes during peace-time.
In September, the B.C. Provincial Court and Federal Court of Canada were asked to issue interim injunctions to prevent Ottawa from moving ahead in October with the controversial expropriations.
However, the B.C. government declined to take part in the court action and on September 22 Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that in that province, private citizens many not be granted injunctions against the government.
Mr. Azevedo was quoted by the Victoria Times Colonist as saying "the case will inevitably wind up in the Supreme Court of Canada." Such an appeal is currently being prepared.
Archbishop Puhalo's participation in the protests puts the UOAC in frontpage headlines across the country and caused some embarrassment for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada (UOCC), the denomination that most Orthodox Ukrainians in the country identify with.
The Rev. Oleh Krawchenko, a spokesman of Metroplitan Vasily Fedak's UOCC Chancery in Winnipeg, denied there is any association between his Church and the Nanoose Bay protests. "This group has nothing to do with us. [It] is not a body recognized by other Orthodox Churches," the Rev. Krawchenko said.
Archbishop Puhalo recognized that there has been a case of mistaken identity between the Churches and confirmed that his UOCC counterparts are not involved in his campaign. The UOAC hierarch said he sent a letter to Winnipeg apologizing for the misassociation, adding he feels there is a good relationship between the two Orthodox Churches.
"As Christians, I am sure that the Greek-Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOCC] is sympathetic to our action," Archbishop Puhalo added.
