I want to express my deep concern with the January 9, 2024 decision of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to go ahead with the long-debated nuclear waste storage facility in Chalk River. This facility will hold up to a million tonnes of radioactive and hazardous waste and will sit in a large mound about a kilometre from the Ottawa River.
I stand with the many concerned community organizations who have been raising alarm bells about this facility for years. The Chalk River site is in a Number 2 Earthquake Zone, making it unsafe for nuclear waste storage. It is also in the significant Temiskaming–Ottawa River watershed, where major flooding will likely become more common in years to come. Most critically, the Ottawa River provides drinking water to large metropolitan areas and millions of people, including Ottawa, Gatineau, and Montreal.
The approval of this site ignores the opposition of 10 Algonquin First Nations, who have clearly said they do not give consent on their unceded lands, in spite of the fact that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples prohibits the disposal of nuclear waste on Indigenous lands without free, prior and informed consent.
In April 2021, Ottawa City Council passed my motion seconded by Catherine McKenney expressing concerns and calling for further safeguards to the project.
I continue to believe that the approval of this facility is based on faulty reasoning and call on the Government of Canada to act to re-evaluate it before it is too late.
