nuclear waste

There are many people across Saskatchewan that worry that a First Nations or Métis community will make a private deal with industry to create a nuclear dump in the province. This raises fundamental issues about protecting Aboriginal and Treaty Rights and Canada’s democracy. It’s therefore a good time to refresh our memories about what national Aboriginal groups have said about this matter. Here I will look at the Assembly of First Nations (AFN); however the Métis Council of Canada (MCC) has said similar things.

The FSIN taking $1,000,000 from the industry-based Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has put nuclear waste back in the news. And apparently the Métis Nation has also taken hundreds of thousands of NWMO money. What does it mean that both large Aboriginal organizations have gone this far? Do they seriously believe that an industry-funded “information” campaign can create informed consent about a nuclear dump in Saskatchewan?

The threat from a nuclear dump would be gigantic. To transport the 1.8 million spent fuel bundles totaling 40,000 tonnes that had accumulated in eastern Canada by 2004 would require thousands of truckloads over several decades. And the industry estimates that double this amount, 3.6 million fuel bundles, will be created by the time existing nuclear plants are shut down. With less than 200 fuel

The industry-based Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has confirmed that two of the four Canadian communities that it is talking to about becoming a nuclear dump are in northern Saskatchewan; at Pinehouse and English River. The other two are in northwestern Ontario, much closer to the nuclear power plants along the Great lakes that produce almost all of the nuclear waste in Canada.