To the editor,
Wow! A 59.3 per cent voter turnout in South Bruce for the municipal election. Something unheard of for a municipal election and many are questioning it.
It seems that South Bruce is welcoming an old council, as four out of seven are returning council members and two of the new councillors indicate they are interested in having a DGR. This means more pushing from the NWMO with its money incentives to say South Bruce is a “willing community” and will have to learn more.
But is the mayor-elect, Mark Goetz, a welcoming new mayor? When media reports state that Mr. Goetz felt there was a “lot of dirtiness from certain candidates – writing letters, banging on doors, a lot of mistruths,” (Wingham Advance Times, Oct. 27) one doesn’t feel he is willing to work with all the people when he has already labelled some residents. Has he got proof that people were banging on doors, demanding votes for certain people, or is that just gossip?
The mayor-elect is going to provide residents all the information about planning to build a DGR. How? Is he talking about the 25 studies? Just who is reading the complete version of the studies? There is a lot more to them than just the two-page flyer the municipality’s Nuclear Exploration Team sends out or the 15-minute presentations made if one watches the South Bruce Community Liaison Committee meetings on Zoom. The studies are pages long focusing on speculations, assumptions, possibilities, conceptions, projections and, recently, proposed collaborations with neighbouring municipalities. Nothing is guaranteed. The only thing that is guaranteed is that the NWMO is going to use the 1,500 acres of farm land they have acquired and bury highly radioactive waste. The studies have cost a lot of money, which thank goodness are paid by the NWMO and not the taxpayers… yet.
Outgoing Mayor Robert Buckle, did try to be neutral, but now the truth comes out in his media statements.
“I should have supported it a lot more than sitting on the fence,” said Mr. Buckle in an interview with CKNX.
Does this indicate he was actually in favour of the project? Mr. Buckle came back to Teeswater, a small community, because he did not like living in the city. Is he now saying it is alright to become more like a big city?
To the mayor-elect, the DGR will remain an unpleasant issue and will continue to divide this community into the groups you have indicated, those being:
– the “people dead against it,” who have done research and are concerned about losing their established way of life and much more;
– the “people who are for it,” thinking it will be a get rich quick project by bringing in high paying jobs, etc.; and
– those “undecided,” who probably don’t know anything about the project and/or couldn’t care less.
Mayor-elect and council, get out and speak to everyone. Find out what neighbouring communities are saying. Remember those communities didn’t sign up to be part of the “process.” The NWMO is going to decide in 2024, so you have little time to find out. Don’t just go by what NWMO is telling you.
S.A. McDonald,
Culross/Teeswater
