Sweden, Austria, Italy and the Phillippines are among the countries which have decided to phase out nuclear power. When Margaret Thatcher privatized the British electricity industry in 1989, she was unable to persuade any private investors to buy the nuclear plants. The buyers balked when they learned how much money it will cost to dispose of radioactive wastes and to dismantle the radioactive structures when the reactors outlive their usefulness. During World War II, Canada spent more on the nuclear weapons program than on all other scientific research and development activities. After the war, Ottawa decided to pursue the civilian possibilities of nuclear technology.
Federal subsidies continue unabated to the present day.
In 1965, Pearson promised in the House that henceforth Canadian uranium would be sold for peaceful purposes only. In the early 1970's, the Trudeau cabinet was instrumental in establishing an international uranium price-fixing cartel in collaboration with South Africa, Australia, France and the British mining conglomerate Rio Tinto Zinc. The cartel used secret quotas and phony bidding to boost world prices in apparent violation of Canadian and international laws. When prices soared, Canada financed an ambitious uranium reconnaissance program to help mining companies locate and exploit economically recoverable reserves. Critics of the nuclear industry maintain that the Canadian public would have been better served if the tax money and political will that has been poured into uranium and nuclear power had been channelled into alternative energy technologies instead.