Tuesday, April 04, 2006
PAML Pickets MaRS Headquarters
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Protestors want Battelle out of Toronto by Hiroshima Day August 6

A dozen protestors held an information picket outside MaRS headquarters at 101 College Street in Toronto today. University of Toronto Security monitored the action from a car parked across the street.

Protestors gathered to campaign against the partnership between the University of Toronto, MaRS (Medical and Related Sciences) and U.S. based Battelle Memorial Institute.

Wearing signs with different messages including “Earth to MaRS – No More War”, “Lack of Ethics = Incentive for Militaries”, “U of T – your academic and wider community want you back so badly” and “MaRS say no to Biowarfare & to Batttelle’s Weapons”, protestors handed out flyers to several passersby for an hour. Some refused to take the flyer and one person returned the flyer because he didn’t want to litter.

“I’m here to protest the taking over of the university with business partnerships to do that kind of testing,” said one protestor. “Our education system is here to benefit everyone – not just the big companies. Eventually, major corporations will be dictating what’s being taught in our schools.”

“We decided to come here today because we don’t agree with what U of T is doing or how things, in general, are being run at U of T,” said two U of T students. “We feel we’re being lied to and the researchers are being manipulated. It’s just turned into a huge business without ethical guidelines.” U of T doesn’t have ethical guidelines for types and lines of research or research partnerships.

“Battelle is a top Pentagon and CIA contractor and shouldn’t be operating in downtown Toronto”, said Ivona Vujica, a PAML organizer. “ We shouldn’t be subsidizing it because it’s public money that’s going to build this facility.” Capital costs are estimated to be $20 million annually; operating costs $100 million annually.

Vujica said the the sad thing is the teaching hospitals including Hospital for Sick Children, Sunnybrook, Women’s College Hospital, Mt. Sinai, St. Mikes and University Hospital Network are listed as supporting this deal.

According to Vujica, this deal with Battelle risks the building of high biocontainment labs that handle and do research on the most dangerous viruses for which there is no cure.

PAML has researched Battelle’s background. Battelle has been named in a lawsuit for anthrax attacks post 9/11 in the U.S. It participated in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. “It’s really frightening”, said Vujica. “So we’re saying we want Battelle out of Toronto by Hiroshima Day on August 6.”

Vujica’s group has sent letters of protest to MP’s, MPP’s, Senators, grassroots organizations, unions and faculty associations across the country. Her main task is to challenge research funding foundations that are unaccountable and outside of public scrutiny.

“Even our auditor general Sheila Fraser doesn’t have jurisdiction over them,” says Vujica.

According to PAML, this partnership is rife with conflict of interest issues. John Evans, chair of MaRS, is also the chair of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. MaRS CEO and President Ilse Treurnicht is married to U of T President David Naylor. Treurnicht was previously the President and CEO of Primaxis Inc. Battelle and Dupont were the prime investors in Primaxis.

“I’m really distressed and I feel that this is just a small piece of the pie,” said Vujica. “MaRS is a sea of convergent technologies. It’s here to support U.S. military supremacy.”

“Military involvement in so many areas of life right now is alarming,” said Marque, while handing out flyers. “Research into chemical warfare agents is particularly ominous. The normalization of the most grotesque technologies is increasing by leaps and bounds. And this is yet another example of what is going on.”

“I’m concerned that it seems to be money driven without consideration for the ethical issues raised,” said protestor John Liss. “It sounds to me that Battelle has been engaged in research activities that I don’t feel are in the interests of humans.”

“And whether most Canadians would want their dollars that helped support U of T used to partner with corporations like Battelle is an important issue for debate.”

According to Liss, the issues researched by Battelle are pretty scary ones. Biomedical research can affect all of us in the long run, detrimentally, if certain forces have their way. One can’t ignore the applied uses of science because it won’t ignore us.