LETTER

New Era: Abandoning Defunct Nuclear Reactors

 

The Government of Canada is spending billions on such projects and there are no national policies to stop this from happening.

Chief April Adams-Phillips, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Gilles Provost, Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive, Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, held a conference August 21 on this topic.

One small item on the agenda for the meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on August 22, has far-reaching and insidious implications.

Called “Whiteshell Laboratories and the Port Hope Area Initiative”, CNL is the multinational consortium that was contracted in 2015 by the previous Conservative government to quickly and cheaply reduce Canada’s $10 billion worth of federal nuclear legacy liabilities. With CNSC support, CNL is turning federal nuclear reactor sites into permanent nuclear disposal facilities that flout international guidelines. These sites will be dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. This is a betrayal of earlier government promises to carefully dismantle reactors and return reactor sites to green field status.

Canada has no national policies for nuclear reactor decommissioning or associated nuclear waste management.

Forty First Nations, citizens groups, and NGOs are asking the Auditor General of Canada for an investigation into spending by NRCan, AECL and CNSC on nuclear decommissioning.

Also, a “Red Canoe March for Nuclear Safety” will begin in the public courtyard on the west side of Bank Street, between Laurier and Slater, August 22 at 10:00 am. First nations and NGO speakers will be there.

Eva Schacherl,
Concerned Citizens
Ottawa