The following is an open letter, dated July 5, to South Bruce Mayor Robert Buckle, council and the South Bruce Nuclear Exploration Team.
To Mayor Buckle, South Bruce councillors and the South Bruce Nuclear Exploration Team,
Everyone one of you has just taken your first step into the deep geological repository (DGR) hole and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is grinning from ear to ear.
How could you, in a closed door (private) meeting with the lawyer present, set up a memorandum of understanding (MOU), then a week later have the lawyer present it at a council meeting, followed by initiating a bylaw to have it signed?
Lise Morton, NWMO vice-president of site selection, states, “…the people in the areas where we’re working will always be the experts on their communities and what’s important to them.” As council, are you the “experts” in this community? Where is the community involvement and transparency?
The MOU is a document that describes a formal agreement between two parties. It is not a legal agreement but it does indicate the establishment of a business relationship that will continue and will likely result in a legal agreement. Just great! What happened to having a referendum before all this formality occurred? It seems that all the i’s will be dotted and the t’s crossed before the community has its say. Who determined this community is “willing?”
Read all the headlines in the recent newspapers regarding the MOU – they make it sound like the DGR is a “done deal” that will be confirmed in 2023 by the NWMO. Will this council be around in 2023? Will this MOU still apply?
Read the conditions in this MOU. The NWMO is going to run this community as 31 of the 36 “guiding” principles are all in the NWMO’s hands. Council will only be a “figure head” bowing down to what the NWMO says.
It is about time South Bruce council and your committee of council, the Community Liaison Committee, who only lets you learn what the NWMO wants you to know, come out from behind their computer screens and have “face-to-face” open meetings with the public.
Yes, Mayor Buckle et al., you have just taken the first step into that deep hole called a DGR. And the community has had no say. Some transparency.
And by the way, the recent South Bruce Exploration Project mail outs say that “several provinces” use nuclear power. Please inform the public what other provinces besides Ontario and New Brunswick use nuclear power. And they call this Canada’s plan!
S.A. McDonald
Culross/Teeswater
