On 1 May 1995 the Canada government announced that it would permit the continuation and expansion of low-level flight training over the Innu homeland of Nitassinan in Labrador-Quebec. The decision came two months after the federal environmental review panel studying the effects of the training released its final report, recommending that the program be permitted to proceed (see Green light for low-flying).

Three countries, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, currently participate in the program, which is designed to train fighter-bomber pilots to fly low enough to avoid radar detection. Canadian pilots also train occasionally. Potential new participants include Belgium and Italy, which are conducting trial deployments to Goose Bay (the base from which the flights are conducted) this year, and France, which may send some aircraft in the future.

Now that expansion of the program has been approved, the Department of National Defence (DND) plans to negotiate a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding with the other participating countries and to increase the number of training flights from 7,000 low-level flights per year to as many as 15,000, with the possible addition of another 3,000 higher altitude air-to-air combat training flights. DND also intends to build a second practice bombing range and to expand the existing Low-Level Training Areas (LLTAs) from two zones totalling 100,000 square kilometres to a single LLTA of 130,000 square kilometers.

There are a number of reasons why the government should have rejected the environmental review panel's recommendation that the training proceed. The primary reason, however, was that the panel examined the issue far too narrowly, ignoring the broader issues of security, the rights of the aboriginal Innu people (who have always opposed the flights), and the military necessity of the training.

Training inappropriate

Low-level flying is an idea whose time has passed. The original purpose of the training was to improve NATO's ability to penetrate the dense Warsaw Pact air defence system and attack targets deep inside Eastern Europe. Today, that rationale no longer exists. Neither the Gulf War nor any other recent war (including the NATO intervention in Bosnia) has required extensive use of low-flying. The improving capabilities of "smart" bombs and stand-off weapons like cruise missiles suggest that the military relevance of low-flying will only continue to decline.

Far from contributing to our military security, continued low-level training could eventually undermine it. The only plausible target for an extensive campaign of low-level flying is the Russian air defence system. Continued emphasis on low-level training thus lends ammunition to the militarists in Russia who argue that NATO continues to treat Russia as an enemy.

There are also broader security issues at stake. Ultimately, real security requires a peaceful, just and sustainable world order that arises from a global culture of respect for international law and for human rights. In this regard, respect for the Innu right to self-determination would itself be a contribution to security much greater than any that could be made by further low-level flight practice. Only when countries begin to put into practice their solemn commitments to high standards of human rights and social justice fairly applied without respect for economic or political power will we begin to see real progress toward the development of a global community that demands such high standards for all.

In recent years, the continuation, and expansion, of the training has been rationalized mainly on economic grounds. Many of the people of Happy Valley-Goose Bay understandably see low-flying as the key to their economic security. But just as Goose Bay's fortunes plummeted when US medium range bombers were replaced by longer range aircraft stationed further south, and fell again when a similar evolution reduced the base's importance for air defence, hard times will return when the declining importance of low-flying eventually takes its toll. A sustainable economy cannot be built on the whims of military fashion.

The existing international memorandums of understanding which permit low-level flight training, and expire next year, should not be renewed. The aboriginal land claims in the region should be resolved in advance of further industrial or other development. The community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay should be assisted in developing a sustainable basis for its economy. And the social and cultural tensions that have arisen around the low-flying dispute should be addressed and mitigated.

By deciding, instead, to encourage increased low-level flight training, the Canadian government has chosen a path that intensifies rather than reduces cultural conflict, that undermines rather than builds security.

Bill Robinson and Peter Chapman

Green light for low-flying

Nine years and $18-million after it began, the Environmental Assessment Panel Reviewing Military Flying Activities in Labrador and Quebec released its report on 2 March 1995. "There are almost no cause-and-effect research studies on the impact of low-level flying in the region," the report stated. Nonetheless, as expected, the panel gave DND the green light to proceed with efforts to more than double the size of the flight training program.

The recommendation came as no surprise. In fact, the Innu and many other groups refused to participate in the review on the grounds that the entire process was flawed from the very beginning:

• The panel was empowered only to look at the immediate social and environmental effects of the project. It was not able to examine broader issues such as: the government's obligation to respect the aboriginal rights of the Innu; the commitment made in the Agenda 21 document, signed at the Earth Summit in 1992, that "the lands of indigenous peoples and their communities should be protected from activities... that the indigenous people concerned consider to be socially or culturally inappropriate"; the possibility of alternatives for more-sustainable economic development in the region; the lack of necessity for low-flying; or the possibility of using alternative training sites, such as the existing range at Cold Lake, Alberta.
• The terms of reference of the panel explicitly ruled out the option of recommending cancellation of the project.
• The panel relied on a DND-supplied Environmental Impact Statement that contained numerous identified gaps and deficiencies and the panel drew its conclusions despite an admitted lack of evidence ("almost no cause-and-effect research studies") on many environmental questions.
• The flight training program was begun seven years before the review began, and was permitted to expand significantly while the review was under way. Goose Bay's subsequent dependence on the economic benefits of this training was then cited by the panel as the primary reason for permitting the program to continue.

The International Campaign for the Innu and the Earth (ICIE), which is co-sponsored by Project Ploughshares, has denounced the government's decision to proceed with the low-flying program. Opponents of the program are encouraged to write letters to Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Minister of the Environment Sheila Copps, and Minister of National Defence David Collenette (House of Commons, Ottawa, K1A 0A6, no postage required). ICIE can be contacted at 602 Markham Street, Toronto, M6G 2L8, 416 531-6154.