To the editor,
The big push in South Bruce, near Teeswater, is two-fold. Are the residents informed about the proposed underground nuclear waste facility and the repackaging plant? How will this willingness process be determined?
After the results from the community survey, done by Deloitte, as instructed by Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), were presented, it raised some questions. How were 88 invalid responses declared? You could use the same PIN over and over, or use other PIN and the deadline was not the deadline. Deloitte had to try to undermine the nine devices who admitted answers to a sloppily set-up survey. Deloitte tried to cover up their own shortcomings and claimed one or two individuals to discredit the process and downplay the seriousness off their own shortcomings.
Using the IP addresses – you can block that or use another device to get another IP address or go to a library or use data. Also, the time you used to fill out the survey was used as criteria. If I look over the shoulder of somebody, or read the questions to them, then when my turn comes to fill in the survey the time is a lot shorter. Totally not watertight arguments from Deloitte how submissions were declared invalid. I contacted Deloitte and asked for the specific PIN numbers that were declared invalid and asked for the raw answers admitted to the survey and was directed to the municipality. I contacted Steve Travale and asked the same question. He wanted to know why I wanted the invalid PINs and I mentioned that we wrote down all the PIN numbers we used and that the math did not make sense at how many surveys were declared invalid. I got an email the following day and my request was declined. They were not going to make public the invalid PIN numbers and the raw data gathered before Deloitte does their twisting and scrubbing to get to their final presentation.
Survey makers should be ready to disclose information about the survey’s goals, procedures, anonymity measures, how the data will be handled and who pays for the survey. Deloitte shared that they were in contact with South Bruce almost every day. Why?
Will this survey, with fabricated and twisted data, be used as a benchmark to determine that the residents of South Bruce are informed?
Will we get another survey and use our IP addresses to see if the residents who answered ‘somewhat agree’ or ‘somewhat disagree’ are shifting position and decide to hold off on the promised referendum for 2024?
IP addresses can be used as a tool to look up or track who is behind this code. There is nothing anonymous about the survey.
Not disclosing invalid PIN numbers and refusal to make the raw data public, suggests secrecy to come to an outcome that favours the NWMO, who paid for the survey. Were the results already written before the survey was done? When was the survey done? Questionable deadline?
The Toronto Star reported on Nov. 1 that Deloitte is being fined $1.59 million “after several of its auditors in the province engaged in ‘deliberate backdating,’ an act that breaches CPA Ontario’s professional code of conduct.”
CPA Ontario, the regulator responsible for licensing and overseeing professional accountants and accounting firms, said that between November 2016 and May 2018, a number of auditors adjusted the clocks on their computers to override controls in Deloitte’s audit software and change working paper sign-off dates.
The quality of the South Bruce survey done by Deloitte, as instructed by NWMO, shows that we need a paper ballot referendum. It looks like there is no safe computer system we can put our faith in to have a reliable and honest outcome.
Rita Groen
South Bruce
