. . . A couple of days later I caught the announcement about the B.C. Conservative Party’s promotion of nuclear – uranium for B.C. (2024-10-02 B.C. Conservatives, Powering B.C., Nuclear Plan)
The nuclear-uranium decision is an unwise one. I doubt you are aware of the consequences. This is a high-stakes game that affects the future – – well beyond your life span. The San Onofre Documentary speaks clearly to that point.
My cards are laid out on the table below.
. . . I believe you to be good, and well-intentioned people.
Sandra Finley
MY CARDS ON THE TABLE
Serendipity! Just released. A very good documentary re mobilization of the community of San Clemente California. The high level nuclear waste from the San Onofre nuclear plant is stored close to the shore (on the beach of the Pacific Ocean) near the city.
The Premier of Japan during the Fukushima Disaster traveled to San Clemente to be able to participate in person at the Hearings. After Fukushima he understands that nuclear is an INTERNATIONAL issue, hence his travels. His experience convinced him that the only option is NO MORE nuclear plants. Which is what Canadians and others have been saying for decades: globally, we must STOP PRODUCING radioactive waste.
The SAN ONOFRE NUCLEAR EXPERIENCE, DOCUMENTARY
WITH GRATITUDE
TO THE PEOPLE OF SAN CLEMENTE, CALIF.
https://globalcinema.online/programs/global-nonviolent-film-festival-full-program-2024
This is a good opportunity to see the film.
Free streaming with no charge and no registration from September 26 until October 13, 2024.
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2024-10-02 B.C. Conservatives, Powering B.C., Nuclear Plan
says: outdated legislation which prohibits nuclear from even being considered in our energy mix.
What makes the legislation outdated?
This is an INDUSTRY that CORRUPTS. No new reactors? Big OR small . . UNLESS . . . unless the industry has access to the public purse to foot the bills, they’re hooped.
I (Sandra) am antsy about the Elephant-in-the-Room, Corruption – – not the fault of those running to be elected. But it has to be acknowledged and dealt with, if ever we are to get better government.
I wish to find ideas from us, for tackling corruption.
My Suggestion to Voters in Ladysmith – Oceanside
Getting a handle on Corruption. How about
USING THE URANIUM – NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AS AN EXAMPLE?
This 2024 Election is being used to promote Nuclear for B.C.
The uranium/nuclear agenda is about impoverishing us. OTHER people get rich. It’s kind of cute how it’s done. A legal sleight-of-hand.
The industry created a Mountain of Waste, a huge liability. NO ONE INVESTS THEIR OWN MONEY in that industry.
SO! take all the LIABILITIES and wrap them up nice. Then RE-DEFINE: use a legal document, create a Government Agency (Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO)) – – like magic! the industry is no longer responsible for their waste, VOTERS are! (This transfer was done years ago.)
You will cry when you learn how many BILLIONS upon BILLIONS the multi-millionaire Executives of Uranium – Nuke have already foisted onto us. Now they want our dollars for “new!” SMNR’s (“small” modular nuclear reactors) . . . Uh uh, Oh no, they don’t. It’s about the gravy train. Top Executive Tim Gitzel, as long ago as 2016 was pulling down $6 million a year in compensation. He and his buddies don’t want the gravy train to stop running.
From their own website – in one year 2013-14, Executive compensation increased by $5 million (from $10 to $15M).
In addition, using the Cameco-Bruce Power example, the CORPORATE BOARD is used as a vehicle for rewarding spent politicians.
Anne McLellan? She was brought onto the Cameco Board in 2006. You may recall Anne – – for years, the only federal Liberal elected in the West (Edmonton). Served 4 terms. She was Federal Minister of Justice, of Health, of Natural Resources, Deputy Prime Minister, under Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. A Liberal of Influence. After politics she went on corporate boards. Her position on the Cameco-Bruce Power Board alone is worth a million dollars.
Watch the San Onofre documentary. At least one Canadian provided input. Canadians and Americans work cross-border to stop the insanity of nuclear power. Another example, the Americans came to Saskatchewan to collect info for the decision on whether or not to extend the Moratorium on nuke-uranium in Virginia (2011). The industry MIS-informed our American guests (National Academy of Science (NAS) (U.S.)) simply by withholding details – questions that the scientists from the Academy would not know to ask. Canadian Citizens filled in the gaps. It’s the same story as the San Onofre experience.
I am telling you that WE, VOTERS, need to take STEP 1 in addressing Corruption. Tell the Nuclear Story to others. The Billions of Dollars in subsidization are Billions of Dollars that are NOT AVAILABLE for the common good. If the Propaganda is not challenged, we WILL have nuclear.
Use the San Onofre documentary; it is a gift. It reveals a much deeper CORRUPTION, at a moral level that deeply wounds the spiritual. This is about what we humans will or won’t do, to protect our children. Literally.
If I know the provinces that have fought against nuclear and won – – the extent of the dedicated “no to nuclear and nuclear waste“ across Canada, the Political Parties know, too. Below, I am using information that has ALREADY happened. It’s what THEY DID DO, not what THEY MIGHT DO.
“Nuclear . . will continue to play a key role in achieving Canada’s low-carbon future.”?. . Why would a political party in Canada promote the nuclear industry? The provinces, moving from the West going east:
- Saskatchewanians fought down nuclear reactors planned for the North Saskatchewan River, 2009. They also fought down 3 separate attempts by the industry to build a deep geological Repository for high level radioactive waste disposal in northern Sask.
- Manitobans gained their experience at Pinawawa (“Whiteshell”) in 1978. “No.” And their High Level Radioactive Waste Act was assented to in 1987. It is illegal to import radioactive waste into Manitoba.
- The citizens of Ontario have had enough experience to know the high cost of nuclear energy. . . .
Mayors of Cities around the Great Lakes, on both the Canadian and American sides, banded together to stop the transport of radioactive waste through their water supply bound for disposal on the other side of the Atlantic. I don’t know the number of communities in Ontario that have said “No” to the disposal of radioactive waste anywhere in their vicinity. For fifty years the industry has been trying unsuccessfully to get rid of their waste. Meanwhile the old reactors in Ontario have to be dealt with, as they near (and are past) end-of-life.
- The Province of Quebec put an end to nuclear reactors. And
prohibited import of radioactive waste for storage in Quebec.
- Point LePreau has been a financial sinkhole for the people of New Brunswick.
WHY are Canadians so opposed to nuclear energy? . . . The ECONOMICS don’t make sense, among other reasons. Most Ontarians, Quebecers, and New Brunswickers, provinces that have had nuclear energy, understand that. And the rest of us learned from their experience. With uranium – nuclear, Citizens become paupers, in more ways than one.
Tell me what bona fide business could shoulder an existing liability for WASTE disposal of more than $24 billion?
(They did it: The sleight-of-hand – REDEFINE, use a legal document, create the NWMO, transfer the liability to VOTERS to manage and pay for. My! But we have creative Government and Business “professionals”.)
I’d say the industry is in desperate need of new customers to create a revenue stream. To pay for
- CONTINUANCE of the multi-million dollar salaries for the “1%”
- the cost of new reactors (no investment fund or insurance fund will touch them. You have to be in on the scam.)
- disposal of 50 years of accumulated radioactive waste (no investment fund or insurance fund will touch that). The San Onofre Documentary is an excellent view into that existential dilemma.
- de-commissioning of the old reactors and disposal of the associated radioactive waste
In a Ponzi, the last man in, gets left holding the bag. Read the evidence. There is lots more. REASSURANCES and PROPAGANDA do not work. Democracy fails in the face of chronic corruption.
The only sane person who would invest in the Industry is one from whom information is withheld. Or one who is in on the game, in a sleaze to join the 1%.
By promoting nuclear as an answer to climate change (which it is not) and other things, the Government and Industry are DELIBERATELY running up even higher, the costs that eventually fall to citizens to pay. Meanwhile those smart people will continue to collect their multi-million-dollar salaries and perks.
It is all dependent on an UNinformed citizenry, propaganda, and serious corruption – – extinction – – of the public interest. It is dependent upon the impotency of Elected Representatives, the existence of a “not-democracy”.
“. . . the CRA went after Cameco: the uranium producer estimated it avoided declaring $4.9-billion in Canadian income, saving it $1.4-billion in taxes, over the last 10 years. (6 years ago.) (The tool used? Off-shoring)
The game is: Heavy-duty, long-term subsidization by Voters. Call it successful Business.
The Liberals appear to be gambling that they can use spin doctors and count on ignorant voters. Can they? . . Does it matter? Now it’s the Conservatives who are riding the uranium – nuclear plank. The industry greases all the potential palms.
A STARTING PLACE FOR STOPPING CORRUPTION IN CANADA?
- Stand up and Speak up. Don’t AGREE to be ignorant and stupid. Even if you like rich guys. Don’t vote for hands in the public purse, pigs at the trough.
And good luck to us all.
Sandra
P.S. When you look behind the rhetoric of “rapid response”, “highly-trained emergency teams”, “most heavily regulated industry“, to “the real world” what you find is farce. (washing high-level radioactive waste into any water supply, let alone a River that is the water supply for 40% of the province’s people. Stupid is as Stupid does. That demo for the cameras had me, and others rolling in laughter!).
In 2011, the National Academy of Science (NAS) (U.S.) came to Saskatchewan to collect information. The state of Virginia was under petition to lift its 30-year moratorium on uranium/nuclear. Saskatchewan has Experience.
Presentations in Saskatoon, by the industry to the delegation from the NAS, relied on the NAS “not knowing”. Oh yeah, we have people of integrity in Canadian business circles. The same tactic as is being used on the Voters of B.C. today.
Economic arguments, once they become known to citizens, win the day. The reactors are boondoggles, through which a few well-placed engineers (ever hear of SNC Lavalin?), people in the industry, the Government, selected local government and the University, are enriched.
The San Onofree Experience
Free streaming with no charge and no registration from September 26 until October 13, 2024. https://globalcinema.online/programs/global-nonviolent-film-festival-full-program-2024
No new reactors? Big OR small . . UNLESS . . . unless the industry has access to the public purse to foot the bills, they’re hooped. This is an INDUSTRY that CORRUPTS. It is the ONLY way it can keep the gravy train rolling.
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TO: (the lady) REGARDING CORRUPTION & SNC LAVALIN, Etc.
I think the (Political Party) can be reassured that if they persist in partnering with crooks they will be exposed.
- CLARINGTON, ON, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW/ – Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has partnered with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, SNC-Lavalin, and Aecon to construct North America’s first Small Modular Reactor (SMR) at the Darlington New Nuclear Project site. A rendering of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor.
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- By Gordon Edwards
Covered for the first time in Canada’s national press, the SNC-Lavalin scandal involving charges of criminal corruption and federal government collusion has been directly linked to charges of mismanagement of radioactive waste at Chalk River.
In 2013, SNC-Lavalin was found guilty of a pattern of bribery and corruption in several countries by the World Bank, and the corporation was banned for 10 years from bidding on any contracts funded by the Bank. Despite this fact, in 2015 the Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper put SNC-Lavalin and its corporate partners (also accused of corruption) in charge of Canada’s eight-billion-dollar radioactive waste liability as well as all federally-owned nuclear facilities.
Receiving almost a billion dollars per year of federal taxpayers’ money, the consortium of multinational corporations (including SNC-Lavalin) has proposed permanent storage of a million cubic metres of mixed radioactive wastes on the surface at Chalk River, right beside the Ottawa River – a plan that has been opposed by 140 municipalities in the area as well as by NGOs and nuclear experts, including a number of scientists who worked for decades at Chalk River in senior positions.
It appears that the federal government, under both of Canada’s major political parties, has chosen to abdicate responsibility to private corporations when it comes to the long-term management of radioactive wastes. There is a complete policy vacuum at the federal level regarding what is allowed and what is not allowed when it comes to fission-generated radioactive wastes other than spent nuclear fuel.
Moreover, the same consortium of private companies is actively working — with federal government cooperation and approval — to build, test and deploy a whole new generation of “Small Modular Nuclear Reactors” (SMNRs) using federally-owned lands and facilities to do so. Canada’s nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has actively lobbied the government to exempt most of these new reactors from any independent environmental assessment under the newly enacted Impact Assessment Act. That exemption is now a fait accompli.
CNSC reports to the Minister of Natural Resources (NRCan), whose mandate includes promoting nuclear power. Last November (2018) NRCan published a “Road Map” for SMNRs, which envisages hundreds of such nuclear reactors deployed widely in Canada.
In July 2012, Japan’s Parliament (the Diet) published a massive report stating that the primary cause of the Fukushima triple meltdown in 2011 was a pattern of inappropriate collusion between the nuclear industry, the regulator, and the government. Such collusion proved to be at the expense of public safety and environmental protection. There are clear indications that a similar pattern of collusion is now occurring between the private consortium (involving SNC-Lavalin), the CNSC, and Canada’s federal government.
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