To the editor,
Council meetings have started for the new term of South Bruce council and as Willing to Listen wrote in a recent letter, Mayor Mark Goetz spoke of the excitement of the group to promote unity. But wasn’t the meeting on Nov. 22 a pathetic showing? Sitting at the council table were the mayor and the three newly-elected councillors. Where were the other councillors? Yes, it has been decided that council meetings could be in-person or virtual, but councillors should be made to attend in person unless for some major reason, like being COVID-19 positive. Deputy Mayor Mike McDonagh did “phone” in, so was there in voice only. Not the same as being there in person.
The ratepayers have paid for a council chamber with each councillor being provided with a desk and comfortable chair, and each councillor is paid a salary. Is this how the elected representatives represent you, sitting in their comfortable chairs at home in front of a screen? How did those new councillors feel when they were the only ones to turn up at their first council meeting?
How is this unity going to be accomplished? The mayor himself divided the community into three groups – those dead against it, those who are for it, and those undecided. Is each “group” going to be acknowledged? The research done by others, not the NWMO, is totally ignored. Will the mayor and councillors acknowledge and address other opinions?
Already at the Dec. 13 meeting, council is working with the NWMO and setting up a “Hosting Agreement Framework” which they want done before a referendum. Or maybe the referendum will be part of this hosting agreement? How much input has the community been able to put into this agreement? Transparency? Great way to end 2022.
Then there is the Community Liaison Committee, which is looking for two new members. Unlike the councillors who had to be elected, former CLC members are allowed to return. Who chooses the new ones – the general public or the CLC? The CLC is to be an unbiased committee, yet in June 2019 the Toronto Star quoted long-time CLC Chair Jim Gowland as saying, “I think there is a great opportunity to host a DGR site… for the most part we’ve got a pretty good, willing community here.” Do you not think he is being bias?
Yes, there is an important forever decision for South Bruce and we are ALL on a journey. Any corporation who comes to South Bruce could make a future for the community, but is allowing highly-radioactive nuclear waste to be buried in South Bruce for thousands of years the answer? Remember, it is not going to be monitored for all those years, and that vibrant and prosperous future is not guaranteed.
Welcome 2023, and another year for the NWMO to continue their dominance in the community. Believing for peace on earth, not living on top of nuclear waste.
S.A. McDonald
Culross/Teeswater
