Presentation to Joint Review Panel OPG Deep Geological Repository
By the Committee for Future Generations
October 8, 2013
This presentation will illustrate that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the nuclear industry, including Ontario Power Generation, lack both the competence and morality to make this decision on the storage of low and intermediate level nuclear waste. The effects of decisions made by Ontario Power Generation reach all the way to northern Saskatchewan as they are one of the founding members of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization
(NWMO) which is trying to dump Ontario’s spent reactor fuel in our back yard.
Our committee formed in response to the first of many NWMO atrocities against First Nations and Metis spirituality:
 On May 9th, 2011, Cree, Dene and Metis Elders were lured to a Sacred Circle for the stated purpose of finding a solution to youth suicide. The circle was instead hijacked by
NWMO liaison officers to promote nuclear waste storage as this solution. Ten Elders immediately got up and left, breaking the Sacred Circle which is serious and rarely heard of.
 In June 2011 a NWMO liaison officer at a public forum in front of 250 people told a
Metis youth known for his opposition to nuclear waste storage that he would be in jail before he even graduated so he “might as well go hang himself with his Metis sash”.

Elders were again deceived in July 2012 after being recruited to conduct a pipe ceremony for a Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Youth Conference at Prince
Albert National Park. Unbeknownst to the Elders, NWMO revealed the real reason for the conference when they started promoting nuclear waste storage to the youth as a career opportunity.

In spring 2013 a sweat-lodge ceremony was desecrated by NWMO’s Director of
Aboriginal Relations Pat Patton who took part in the ceremony only to promote nuclear waste storage inside the sweat-lodge.
Since formation, our committee has shed light on the nuclear industry’s gross interference in the consultation process in our communities. Saskatchewan is the same “nuclear oasis” described to this Joint Review Panel on October 3rd 2013 by Cheryl Grace of the Bluewater
Coalition. "Nuclear oasis" is a concept introduced by a 20th century social scientist from the
United Kingdom whose theory posits that places already hosting existing nuclear facilities, are the most likely places where radioactive waste repositories may be welcome. Similar to the 40year presence of nuclear reactors in the Kincardine area, we in northern Saskatchewan, at the start of the uranium fuel chain, are heavily influenced by six decades of uranium mining. Every northern community has families with multi-generational work history in Cameco’s uranium mines. Large billboards on provincial highways picture the faces of Indigenous people and announce “Cameco is the Number One Industrial Employer of Aboriginal People”. The nuclear

industry, namely Cameco and Areva, has partnered with our most sacred institutions - health, education, governance and sports - injecting millions of dollars into community infrastructure, schools, universities and hospitals. Cameco has teamed up with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in a public relations program giving money to cancer research, recently granting a terminal patient her lifelong wish of a red sports car. Who in that arena would dare reference the fact that radiation causes sickness in the first place?
As a result of this influence by the nuclear industry on virtually every sector of our society, as described in the nuclear oasis concept, a sense of indebtedness has been created, affecting the ability of political leaders at all levels to make unbiased decisions in the best interests of the people. Recent so-called “collaboration agreements”, signed by northern band and municipal administrations with Cameco and Areva, promise jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars, influencing support of the latest entry into the nuclear oasis – the Nuclear Waste Management
Organization - which is quickly moving those administrations through adaptive phased management for a nuclear waste repository. When our committee reported to the October 3rd
2013 CNSC hearing that Cameco signed these collaboration agreements in contravention of duty to consult, CNSC president Michael Binder replied that he did not want to get involved in community politics. Cameco Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Sean Willy retorted,
“Cameco has had a 25-year relationship with northern communities which speaks for itself”.
This nuclear oasis extends to the provincial community. Last spring Saskatchewan premier Brad
Wall stated at a large public function, “You know what - the best program for First Nations and
Metis in this province is not a program at all – it’s Cameco!” First Nations and Metis angered by the premier’s comment subsequently held a press conference to which premier Wall replied by backing up his stance, identifying Cameco as one of Saskatchewan’s best corporate citizens.
Premier Wall has also repeatedly stated to our committee in writing that the “provincial government supports the mandate of NWMO”.
At a CNSC hearing on October 3rd 2013, President Michael Binder asked our committee who we would trust for information on uranium mine safety. When we answered that we would trust an independent study on the health and environment, Binder directed us to the government for that study. A committee member told president Binder about these concrete examples of our premier’s relationship with Cameco, and also of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper’s relaxing of uranium sale policy in order to make a deal with India, one of the few countries left in the world refusing to sign the non-proliferation treaty. Binder remained unmoved.
The history of nuclear genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada dates back to the 1930s. The
Canadian government began its love affair with the atom in 1930 when radium was discovered near Deline in the North West Territories. Local Dene residents were hired to carry burlap sacks of uranium ore from the Port Radium mine to the barges on Great Bear Lake. The workers slept on the bags of uranium all the way to Fort McMurray where it was transferred for shipment to the Port Hope Refinery in Ontario.

Deline resident Cindy Kenny-Gilday wrote: "Deline is practically a village of widows; most of the men who worked as labourers have died of some form of cancer. The widows, who are traditional women, were left to raise their families with no breadwinners or supporters. They were left to depend on welfare and other young men for their traditional food source. This village of young men are the first generation of men in the history of Dene on this lake to grow up without guidance from their grandfathers, fathers and uncles. This cultural, economic, spiritual and emotional deprivation impact on the community is a threat to the survival of the one and only tribe on Great Bear Lake. It's the most vicious example of cultural genocide I have ever seen and it’s in my own home." The people of Deline did not know what was causing cancer. The Canadian government did not inform Deline that it was their exposure to radiation that was killing them until 1998, after the people of Deline had identified the cause through their own research. Andy Orkin, an Ontario lawyer who worked on behalf of the Deline First
Nations people said it best: "We left them to die and hoped they would never ask any questions".
GUNNAR MINE
The Gunnar Mine is located 25 kilometres from Uranium City and operated from 1955 to 1964.
No effort to decommission the facility was made when it closed. The Canadian government showed their complete disregard for First Nations people when they set up a federally-owned fish processing plant at the pier on the mine site in 1971 despite knowing the radioactive dangers posed by the mine and the tailings. Chief Victor Fern recalls his early teen years at the fish plant in a 2006 report titled For Our Children’s Children. “The buildings were wide open and there were no warning signs or anything. The mine shaft was probably about fifty yards from the processing plant and that was wide open, too. We used to climb that every day. There was no fencing or anything. Even the uranium processing mill was wide open, so we used to go in all those buildings, not knowing any dangers about radiation. Also the tailings pond where all the waste went, it was fine sand that we didn’t know was toxic waste, and we would go and play in there.”
SERPENT RIVER (ELLIOT
LAKE)
Twelve uranium mines opened near Elliot Lake in the early 1950s to supply uranium to the
American nuclear weapons program. The radioactive tailings from mining and milling were dumped into ten lakes close to the mines. The contamination killed the lakes and 90 kilometres of the Serpent River. In 1974, the government of Ontario appointed Dr. James Ham to study mine safety at Elliot Lake. He concluded that "Neither the workers nor their representatives were advised about the emerging status of the problem of lung cancer". Dr. Ham, a past president of the University of Toronto, also conducted an inquiry into the actions of the
Workers Compensation Board in the 1970s. The inquiry led to the reversal of over 100 compensation claims against radiation induced illnesses and death.
The CNSC was present at Cameco’s Millennium Mine presentation in Pinehouse in 2012. During the portion on worker safety, an audience member asked if Cameco measures for internal

emitters. Cameco’s Manager of Northern Relations replied, “I don’t know what that means.”
The audience member started to define the term when a CNSC staffer interrupted and covered for Cameco. This is inappropriate conduct for someone who is supposed to be operating in a regulatory capacity. Later, Cameco staff stated that internal emitters can be detected by a urine test. When an audience member attempted to dispute this statement, a local NWMO liaison loudly ordered Cameco's Manager of Northern Relations, "That person is not a member of our community; deal with her concerns in her own hometown". When Cameco conducted their annual Northern Tour later that fall, open mic was cancelled for the first time in 13 years of the
Tour's history, preventing community members from asking questions or express concerns.
MCARTHUR RIVER URANIUM MINE
On April 6, 2003, Cameco’s McArthur River uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan suffered a cave-in and flood of radioactive water. The miners who were sent in to try to save the mine worked without respirators or radiation suits for the first 48 hours. According to Bill Good, one of the first miners sent in, "the mine's radiation alarm kept going off, but the radiation technician merely re-set the alarm, assuring us that everything was fine.
In June 2012 at a NWMO Open House at English River First Nation, Pat Patton, NWMO Director of Aboriginal Affairs, gave a demonstration of how the proposed DGR for high level radioactive waste is supposed to work. Afterwards she was asked by a band member, “Since Ontario has the same rock formations as northern Saskatchewan, why would you go through all of the additional expense and risk transporting it across two provinces to Saskatchewan?” Her reply was, “The people of Toronto don’t feel safe.”
NWMO chose National Aboriginal Day in 2012 to use Pinehouse community hall for an information display. Disgusted community members refused to enter the hall and formed a large circle outside. When NWMO officials came out of the hall, several community members told Director of Aboriginal Relations Pat Patton that no more information is needed from
NWMO because traditional wisdom teaches us that nuclear waste is dangerous, so it’s already been decided we don't want it on our lands, and that over half of the eligible voting population in both Pinehouse and English River First Nation had already signed a petition against nuclear waste. NWMO officials were clearly told by community members to leave the community and never return. Patton's response was, "You haven't learned enough yet."
In February 2013, Pat Patton was presenting an information session to the Federation of
Saskatchewan Indian Nations, which included a CNSC video of transport containers being impact-tested. An audience member asked, “Was there nuclear waste in the containers during these tests?” Patton replied, “No, that would be too dangerous.”
Part of NWMO’s Adaptive Phased Management is a “third-party review” of NWMO’s process, paid for by NWMO. In Pinehouse’s case, Northern Research Group (NRG) was hired and on
March 8, 2013, delivered what was supposed to be an independent review of NWMO’s process to the community. NRG’s Matt Vermette instead delivered what amounted to a slide show of
NWMO information. When questioned by an audience member what material he referred to in his research, Vermette named documents exclusively from NWMO and the nuclear industry.

When challenged on the bias of his research, Vermette stated that it was “difficult to find” any scientific information on the “other side” of the nuclear waste issue.
At the October 3, 2013 CNSC hearings in La Ronge on the relicensing of three of Cameco’s uranium mines, despite its demonstrated incompetence as a “third party” researcher, NRG was repeatedly referred to by the executive director of Kineepik Metis Local, one of the signatories on the Cameco/Areva collaboration agreement, as Pinehouse’s “professional expertise”.
On October 2, 2013 at the CNSC hearings in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, on Cameco’s application to relicense three of its uranium mines, an intervenor brought up the ongoing issue of permanent contamination from Gunnar mine. CNSC president Michael Binder’s response was,
“It is my understanding that Gunnar is a mistake of the past”. The mistake may have been made in the past but the radioactive material they released to the environment is still causing harm, and will continue to do so for generations.
As a result of several decades of the government not protecting miners and the environment in
Saskatchewan, there are 50 known cases of cancer among the 850 English River First Nation residents, or 1 in 17. Such levels of cancers in a southern community would cause an uproar.
On the basis of this submission, the Committee for Future Generations cites the critical need for communities in the affected area of Ontario Power Generation’s proposed deep geological repository to be provided with quality, independent information on all sides of the nuclear waste storage issue, and after a suitable time period of education, they be properly consulted for their free, prior and informed consent.