COMING SOON TO A TOWN NEAR YOU

Yesterday's Kitchener-Waterloo Record carrys the following encouraging news: "Bruce County towns consider storing nuclear waste". Isn't that just charming? But it gets better. Not only is it Canada's highest level of radioactive waste but one of those "Bruce County" towns is Walkerton. Whoa that's not very far from Elmira (north-west) at all. The other town is Southampton and Port Elgin on the shores of Lake Huron.

I truly wonder if any community would be willing hosts if they had significant alternate employment available. This is the carrot and stick approach. We are in a recession and Bruce County as well as northern Ontario have always had issues providing jobs and keeping young people in the community. A spokesperson for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization stated that "This project will not be imposed on any community". That is only slightly reassuring. The recession has been imposed and they are offerring jobs. Secondly what most likely will be imposed on the community is a gilded version of the truth. How can any informed community have any faith or confidence in either governments or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment? Client driven consultants routinely write the "technical" reports that their clients want. These consultants are selling their credentials to the highest bidder. Mental prostitution it could be called.