Dear editor,
In October Ignace municipal councilor Jodie Defeo will be attending a conference in Vienna Austria to do a presentation to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Her presentation will explain how the “deliberative democracy” process was employed to gauge the willingness of the community to accept and proceed with the development of a nuclear waste dump which will be located some 28 kilometers south west of Ignace outside of the municipality boundaries. Ignace is upstream of the watershed where the dump will be located on crown lands.
Defeo states she will give a brief history of the last 14 years of community engagement and conversation on whether the approximately 1200 residents of Ignace would want Canada’s 1st nuclear waste dump. In her presentation on the world stage on this most important issue I would hope she will be open and honest on how the in the last 14 years of engagement with the nuclear industry Ignace has been enriched with “wellness” money that comes from the nuclear industry which in turn is funded by public money via your electric bills.
In her presentation to be open and honest I would hope she would point out the following;
- present a list of the very expensive gifts the nuclear industry has bestowed on Ignace such as fire trucks, snow removal equipment, upgrades to municipal buildings, gifts to the local skidoo club and a long list of other “wellness” money gifts.
- present a description of the “balanced” conversation the town of Ignace has had on the pros and cons of the proposed dump.It would be interesting to see how much time was spent on looking into the very realistic negative impacts the dump could pose to the region and those living downstream of the dump as opposed to the economic benefits the town of Ignace will reap.
- present some rational reasoning on why the rest of the communities along the transportation routes the toxic waste will take have been excluded from the decision making process.
- present some rationale on why it is better to transport this very toxic dangerous waste thousands of kilometers over some of the most dangerous highways in Canada when it could be buried or stored literally within a few kilometers of the largest nuclear plant in North America located in Southern Ontario.
- last but not least perhaps she could comment on whether the NWMO(Nuclear Waste Management Organization) has weakened the democratic process as she has described it by accepting millions of dollars of “wellness” money the NWMO has been bestowed upon Ignace. Others would describe this as a form of bribery and a corrupt process.
Before Defeo heads to Vienna perhaps she would be willing to publicly share her presentation with us common folk here in N.W. Ontario who will be put at risk as this most toxic dangerous waste travels through our communities!
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
James Kimberley
Atikokan Ontario
