Given by Wolfe Erlichman

December 10, 2008 at a hearing in Ajax, Ontario.

[The Hearing was part of the approval process to refurbish 4 nuclear reactors in Pickering so that they can continue to operate for another 25 to 30 years]

The conclusion of the Screening Report on the refurbishing of Pickering B is that," the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects". The Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium (CCAMU) disagrees with this conclusion but there are larger, more important issues which the Report does not address.

The problems, often in aboriginal communities, caused by uranium mining, either open pit or in-situ leaching, are not addressed. The difficulties associated with finding a secure long-term solution to the problem of storing nuclear waste are not addressed. Also not addressed is the problem of the staggering costs of building, maintaining, refurbishing, and decommissioning the reactors.

So great are the problems associated with nuclear power that senior environmental officials at OPG have indicated that clean renewable power sources are preferable to nuclear power if renewable power can do the job. An argument could be made that clean alternatives to nuclear power are available and, if that is the case, why are nuclear reactors with their attendant exorbitant costs and risks still an option?

We may find the answer if we examine the tangled interconnected web which is the nuclear industry in Canada. Since the nuclear industry is totally government run, there is no financial discipline imposed by the market. Even Bruce Power is not a real private company with its sweetheart deal with Ontario which guarantees its profits and subsidizes the company no matter how inefficient it is. The Canadian nuclear industry has been financed by a never-ending flow of public money by both levels of government and it has resulted in a very good living for those in the industry at taxpayers' expense. There are many fingers in the $100 billion nuclear pie. This is one of the reasons why nuclear power is still considered a viable option despite the long lead times, extraordinary costs and problems, and the degradation of the environment caused by mining.

An examination of the decision-making process sheds more light on this topic. The politicians get their advice from "experts" at the Ontario Power Authority and Ontario Power Generation. These "experts" obviously have a vested interest in maintaining and promoting nuclear power because their jobs are at stake. Workers and residents in the host communities are also concerned about their economic well-being. Nuclear power offers the politicians an inordinately expensive but turnkey solution while the "experts" tell them that alternative energy is not ready. More importantly, the conservation and renewable energy route is politically very messy with no clear directions and a probable political minefield awaiting any politician who attempts it.

Once the province chooses nuclear power either by way of refurbishment or newbuild, it has to go through an environmental process supervised by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which, according to its president Mr. Michael Binder, is "independent of, but not isolated from, government". This lack of independence on the part of the CNSC was clearly and bluntly illustrated when Minister Lunn fired Linda Keen for not following orders. In this case, it would be difficult for the CNSC to refuse to approve nuclear refurbishments and newbuilds when another agency of the federal government (AECL) is trying to sell the newbuilds and do the refurbishing.

CNSC president Michael Binder has been touting nuclear power as part of the remedy for global warming as well as making it clear that CNSC is part of the nuclear establishment. As a result, it is difficult to tell where the CNSC's cheerleading ends and the regulating begins. This is not very reassuring from an environmental point of view. After all, we do expect the CNSC to protect us from nuclear disasters.

Pickering B's license should not be renewed. We should not be wasting precious time and taxpayers' money trying to find ways of mitigating the harmful effects of a dangerous technology.

What we really need is an open, public environmental assessment by a truly independent body which would look at the real economic and environmental costs of nuclear power and compare them to conservation and alternative sources. We have to use the billions of dollars allocated to nuclear to transition nuclear jobs into green jobs.