INSERT May 31, 2017:
IMPORTANT, in relation to INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING
Scroll down to
(1) CITIZEN OWNERSHIP OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
(2) WHAT HAPPENS UNDER NAFTA
(3) BRAD WALL AND THE “WESTERN ENERGY CORRIDOR” (information regarding situation in the U.S., water)
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Why do we need the “largest on the planet” movement of electricity and oil into the U.S.? And just how sustainable is that?
(Brad Wall’s (Premier of Saskatchewan’s) Canada-U.S. Western Energy Corridor as reported in the Star Phoenix and Calgary Herald, June 15th, 2009)
CONTENTS
(-2) CONDITIONING FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL IN SASKATCHEWAN
(-1) MEETING TIMES IN STONY RAPIDS, FOND DU LAC AND WOLLASTON LAKE. SPREAD THE WORD!
(0) PREAMBLE TO SASKATOON MEETING
(1) CITIZEN OWNERSHIP OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
(2) WHAT HAPPENS UNDER NAFTA
(3) BRAD WALL AND THE “WESTERN ENERGY CORRIDOR”
(4) STAR PHOENIX REPORT ON SASKATOON UDP PUBLIC CONSULTATION MEETING
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(-2) CONDITIONING FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL IN SASKATCHEWAN
REQUEST: PLEASE help get the word to people in Stony Rapids, Fond du Lac and Wollaston Lake. Meetings on the nuclear issue will be in their communities next week (schedule below).
Northern Saskatchewan is a target site for radioactive waste disposal. They should know about the meetings.
IMPORTANT RE RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL. We are in the process of being conditioned to believe that Governments have NO responsibility for where the radioactive waste goes.
Listen to the Florizone video that is played at the beginning of every public consultation meeting (link no longer valid www.saskuranium.ca ). You’ll hear it there and you’ll increasingly see it quoted and printed in the media.
It is, of course, not the case. But they know that through repeating a message over and over again, they can convince people it’s true. (It’s nothing more than applied advertising or brain-washing theory.)
In the video you will hear Florizone say that a COMMUNITY has the responsibility for deciding whether or not it will have a radioactive waste disposal site. Well that’s bunk. Governments have that responsibility. It’s a way of getting around public opposition to radioactive waste sites in their province. It might help get around federal and provincial environmental regulations, I don’t know.
It certainly makes it easier for the industry: they have only one community to ply with money. They target poor communities.
We need to start challenging the assertion that governments do not have responsibility for the siting of radioactive waste disposal.
(The words of Ron Covais (Security & Prosperity Partnership) from Maclean’s Magazine echo in my mind: “We’ve decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes,” says Covais, “Because we won’t get anywhere.” The changes will come “by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes . . “. This is one change that we should not allow to happen!)
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(-1) MEETING TIMES IN STONY RAPIDS, FOND DU LAC AND WOLLASTON LAKE. SPREAD THE WORD!
The remaining public meetings:
Mon Tues, June 22 & 23, Regina, Travelodge South Hotel, Stakeholder Meetings
Public Consultation Meetings:
Wed June 24, Stony Rapids, Community Hall, 7:30-10:00 pm
Thur June 25, Fond du Lac, Band Hall, 1:00-3:30 pm
Thur June 25, Wollaston Lake, LAC Hall, 7:00-9:30 pm
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(0) PREAMBLE
PREAMBLE
Between 700 and 800 people attended the Saskatoon Meeting! Wow! And congratulations to everyone.
Karen Weingeist, Dave and company put out 650 copies of an excellent pamphlet full of information, on chairs in the meeting hall beforehand. And handed out hundreds more information sheets. The hours that go into the wording, formatting, printing, copying, folding, cutting and distributing of information is pretty incredible. And these are all such happy people!
The meeting ended a little before 11:00 pm.
I am always bowled over by the variety of valuable insights that come from a group of people. And the “intensity of interest” in the crowd when the topic is critical.
I won’t list all the important points made. (Audio recordings of the meetings are available — link no longer valid www.saskuranium.ca )
Below I picked two points that I think are very important to carry forward into the next phase. In a separate email I’ll address another.
We need to stop nuclear power reactors in Saskatchewan and in Alberta. It doesn’t matter if our reasons are different. It only matters that we organize and use our power to stop them. So that “IF” never happens.
We should clearly understand the “IF”.
/Sandra
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(1) CITIZEN OWNERSHIP OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
At the Saskatoon meeting, a retired employee of SaskPower pointed out the importance of people owning their own supply of electricity.
Bless him! I wish every person in Saskatchewan and Alberta understood this.
IF NUCLEAR REACTORS GO AHEAD, BRUCE POWER OWNS THE ELECTRICITY.
I can’t emphasize the privatization issue enough. The Governor of California in the wake of their electricity crisis in the year 2000, spells out the lesson very clearly:
Governor Davis said:
“We must face reality: California’s deregulation scheme is a colossal and dangerous failure. It has not lowered consumer prices. And it has not increased supply. In fact, it has resulted in skyrocketing prices, price-gouging, and an unreliable supply of electricity. In short, an energy nightmare . . . we have lost control over our own power. We have surrendered the decisions about where electricity is sold – and for how much – to private companies with only one objective: maximizing unheard-of profits.”
Some see the UDP Report as a business plan for the privatization. The functions of SaskPower would end up at Bruce Power.
The newspaper report circulated to you yesterday tells of Brad Wall spearheading the cross-border “Canada-U.S. Western Energy Corridor“.
The blue print is in B.C. In 2003 the Campbell Government legislated changes to B.C. Hydro. No one noticed until it was too late. As I understand it, under the new legislation, B.C. Hydro BUYS electricity for the people of B.C.. Its role as the owner of the facilities that produce electricity, the public ownership of the electricity supply, ends. They get Private Power Producers – privately-owned hydro-electric dams with private access to sections of their rivers. This is different from dispersed, locally-owned wind and solar power generation that the public utility buys.
The danger with the PPP’s in B.C. is that the large corporations wait until large and small PPP’s are in place, get it past people, then they walk in and buy up the smaller outfits who are happy to sell because they get paid a bundle and can retire.
The safeguards we used to have, anti-combines legislation and Foreign Investment Review no longer exist. The obstacles for the corporations, strengthened during the Trudeau years, are gone. The large corporations can own and control the supply of electricity, just like they own oil. Alcan already owns the dam and section of the river at Kitimat. There are some other similar examples.
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(2) WHAT HAPPENS UNDER NAFTA
One fellow at the Saskatoon meeting provided the NAFTA chapter that applies to sales of electricity. By NAFTA rules, local Saskatchewan (and Alberta) people would have to pay the same price charged in the U.S. market into which the electricity is sold. (Both Manitoba and B.C. sell electricity to the U.S. – I would like to confirm that the NAFTA rule applies and is enforced?)
Read yesterday’s (June 15th) newspaper report (see #4 below) on the effort spearheaded by Brad Wall, the “Western Energy Corridor”. There is no doubt but that the part of the electricity that is not going for tar sands production is headed for the U.S.
Bruce Power is to own the nuclear power plants. Its job is to make money. The doom coming down the tracks in the U.S. means they will be increasingly desperate for electricity. The California electricity experience, according to the Governor, in 2000 was “skyrocketing prices, price-gouging” and “unheard-of profits”.
Remember the examples of the salaries received by the executives of privatized crown corporations, Cameco and PotashCorp, sent in an earlier email. These corporations have no qualms about anything.
Brad Wall is “spearheading” the Western (Canada-U.S.) Energy Corridor, the “largest on the planet”, “one that develops both non-renewable (tar sands) and clean-energy (nuclear) options.”
Why do we need the “largest on the planet” movement of electricity and oil into the U.S.? It’s because the state of California alone has a population the size of Canada. There is a 50/50 chance that their electricity supply will be gone by 2017 with falling water levels behind dams. 30 million Americans without electricity because they have abused their water supply (we do exactly the same thing). I don’t even want to think what comes next after the electricity.
But we’ve talked about it before. Peter Lougheed, former Premier of Alberta, laid it on the line in his letter published in the Globe and Mail a few years ago. Old-timers in our network will remember: “The Americans will be aggressively after our water in 3 to 5 years. We had better be prepared.” He used the word “aggressively”. I have conveniently forgotten the year in which he said it.
He is wrong about one thing. The Americans won’t be “aggressively” after our water. Brad Wall is happy to hand it over, if his spearheading of the Western Energy Corridor is any indication. Mind you, I suspect he is just picking up where the last government left off. These negotiations take place over time.
Nuclear reactors and tar sands. They require water. Brad Wall should be required to paddle the Saskatchewan River. And read the scientific reports. There isn’t an abundance of water in the River, in spite of the assurances we are given about cross-border water agreements. The Americans left the management of the rivers in the hands of government, to disastrous consequence. We should take heed.
The Western (Canada-U.S.) Energy Corridor, the “largest on the planet” is just the opening move. . . . And yes, as reported in the Globe & Mail, dear Brad will be a wonderful prime minister, in the event that Stephen Harper can’t execute the agenda. Brad Wall (maybe not, he’s not bilingual – what a godsend).
I would really like to know who started that rumour about Brad, Prime Minister-in-waiting and got it published. It will be repeated and repeated until we come to believe it. He would be perfect for the corporate intentions, not only for the “largest on the planet energy corridor”, but for the next urgently-needed trench for the “product” water.
The 1972 map of water diversions from Canada to the U.S. shows them bringing the water down from Lake Athabasca along the Sask-Manitoba border to the U.S. through a series of dams that include the HighGate (North Sask River near North Battleford) (which we fought down) and Meridian (South Sask River near the Sask-Alberta border)(which we fought down back around 2000).
People are becoming more agreeable to the building of dams on the Churchill River for power generation; it is better than nuclear. But we should be careful. ANY dam that might become part of water diversion should not be built!
I am with those who think it possible (PROBABLE) that the Rafferty-Alameda Dam adjacent to the U.S. border in Saskatchewan is conveniently placed for water diversion into the States. The Rafferty-Alameda has its own story that does not make sense. Except in that context.
At one time the idea of the water diversions seemed silly. But when you know what’s happening in the western U.S. today, they don’t seem so silly. And when Premier Brad Wall (Saskatchewan) talks of the “cross-border Western Energy Corridor” that will be the largest on the planet I get nervous. A grandiose scheme for water diversion seems not far behind.
But I think Brad has a problem: he didn’t see us coming!
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(3) BRAD WALL AND THE “WESTERN ENERGY CORRIDOR”
Approximately, this is what I said or intended to say to the UDP Meeting last night in Saskatoon:
(Many of you know this from earlier emails. Just skip it!)
(My name.) I have run an email information network for 10 years. I started working on water. I have been very interested in matters of governance, what lies behind the decisions being made? For example, we worked on GMO wheat. Why were we fighting it when no one wanted it? It wasn’t beneficial for farmers, or the public. So who is it for?
What’s behind nuclear reactors in Saskatchewan? (I then introduced and read from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, June 15th, page D8.
“Premiers, governors promote Canada-U.S. energy corridor
Western premiers and U.S. governors on Sunday hailed their push to develop a cross-border Western Energy Corridor that will be the largest on the planet and one that develops both non-renewable and clean-energy options. Spearheaded by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall” and so on.
Note that the “non-renewable” option Wall speaks about is tar sands. And the “clean-energy” for the Corridor is nuclear.
A private group, MATL (Montana Alberta Tie Ltd) is trying to build a high-power transmission line from Lethbridge south to Montana. The UDP Report says we will export electricity to Alberta. But they are building nuclear reactors in Alberta, too. So what’s behind it?
As the water behind a dam goes down, the ability to produce hydro-electricity is lost. Rivers in the western United States are running out of water. The situation is very serious. But people can make a lot of money by selling electricity from Canada into the market for electricity in the U.S.
That’s the first part of “what’s behind it”?. The second part is that we are running out of oil. The development of the tar sands in Saskatchewan offers the opportunity to make more money. The relationship between the nuclear and oil companies is symbiotic.
Someone here tonight said there is an estimated 8 years left in the natural gas supply needed to heat tar sands. The oil companies HAVE to have electricity to heat up the tar sands. They have to have the nuclear plants. So that’s the second part of “what’s behind it?”. Both reasons are caused by resource depletion.
As we know from the example of the cod fishery, the absolute wrong response is to do the things that only accelerate the depletion of the resource. You have to get off the resource. We have to move to conservation and alternative energy sources. Get off oil and cherish our water supply.
There is a second matter: (I talked about the lie in the Florizone video, that we solved the problem of acid rain. A convenient lie for the oil and nuclear corporations, a great disservice to the people of Saskatchewan. If we don’t understand the true situation with acid rain in northern Saskatchewan, we can’t make right decisions. If we are going to kill the North with acid rain, we should at least know that is what we are doing.) Ignorance is not a defence.
For Florizone to collaborate in pedaling statements that contravene known fact is so repugnant.
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(4) STAR PHOENIX REPORT ON SASKATOON UDP PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS
Meeting hears call for caution
More study required on Saskatchewan’s nuclear future: forum
By Jeremy Warren, The StarPhoenixJune 16, 2009
NUCLEAR ISSUE ATTRACTS CROWd: Dan Perrins, consultation chair of the Future of Uranium in Saskatchewan forums, addresses a crowd of more than 750 people during Monday night’s meeting in Saskatoon
NUCLEAR ISSUE ATTRACTS CROWd: Dan Perrins, consultation chair of the Future of Uranium in Saskatchewan forums, addresses a crowd of more than 750 people during Monday night’s meeting in Saskatoon Photograph by: Gord Waldner, The StarPhoenix, The StarPhoenix
A majority of the more than 750 people who packed a Saskatoon convention room Monday night for the latest Future of Uranium meeting rejected any movement on the Uranium Development Partnership (UDP) report that recommended the development of nuclear energy in Saskatchewan.
During an open mic portion of the nearly three-hour meeting, University of Saskatchewan sessional lecturer Chris Jensen asked the crowd to raise a hand for one of two options: Do you support moving forward with the UDP report recommendations, or do you want to halt the report until an impartial study is completed?
A few raised hands were sprinkled across the large, hot convention room at the Travelodge Hotel for the first option. A forest of hands was raised for the second.
The consultation meetings — Saskatoon marked the ninth — are gathering public input on the UDP report that recommended several ways to develop nuclear energy on top of Saskatchewan’s uranium industry.
Ann Coxworth, the first speaker of the evening, has been with the Saskatchewan Environmental Society for 22 years, but her first career was as a nuclear chemist extracting plutonium from spent nuclear reactor fuel
“I hope now I can avoid the label of an ill-informed fear mongerer,”Coxworth said, to the first of many rounds of applause for nuclear development opponents.
Coxworth was invited to sit on the UDP board, but she declined, she said.
The mandate and composition of the board was a set-up to push for nuclear development, she added.
“(The partnership) was charged with how — not whether — Saskatchewan can develop the nuclear industry,” said Coxworth.
“It’s like a vegetarian being invited to a meeting to decide whether to serve beef or pork for dinner.
“It’s not the job of promoters to focus on the weak parts of their product.”
Anna Bigland-Pritchard, a 16-year-old student at Borden School, told the audience the Saskatchewan government is not engaging youth on nuclear issues.
“We’re not getting properly educated at school and we’re left to research the topics ourselves,” said Bigland-Pritchard. “Teenagers don’t care about newspapers or the news — they’re watching MTV.”
Today’s children will deal with the negative effects of nuclear power, she said.
“I might have to deal with the mess left by decisions made today by the adults here tonight,” said Bigland-Pritchard.
Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce CEO Steve McLellan made his organization’s pro-nuclear opinions known.
“We knew years ago that Saskatchewan needed houses, and we built. We know we need nurses and we’re trying to fix that,” said McLellan. “We now know our businesses and homes need more power. We support the UDP’s report recommendations.”
After hearing at several meetings that people felt there was a lack of alternative viewpoints in the UDP report, consultation chair Dan Perrins added to the agenda an open mic session.
Previously, those attending the meetings would break out into groups for facilitators to take down their comments for Perrins’ final report.
But it wasn’t easy to hear other criticisms Monday night. One pro- nuclear speaker was shouted down by an anti-nuclear supporter before a moderator could step in. While there have been similar incidents at past meetings, most have been cordial, said Perrins.
“Everyone should feel free to speak their minds, whether they support (development) or not,” he said in an interview after the open mic session.
The UDP report recommended the construction of a 3,000-megawatt reactor and other nuclear developments, such as a research reactor that could also produce medical isotopes.
The forums move to La Ronge tonight, before heading to Regina for two days of stakeholder meetings beginning June 22.
Perrins announced Monday three new meetings in northern Saskatchewan.
On June 24, the forum stops in Stony Rapids, before heading to Fond du Lac and Wollaston Lake on June 25.