Groups that travelled to Queen\u2019s Park last week for the reading of their petition asking the Provincial government to adopt a Proximity Principle requiring that high-level radioactive waste be managed close to where it is generated may wait until mid-October to hear to back from the Provincial government. The government has 24 sitting days to respond to petitions presented in the Provincial legislature. The groups say they won\u2019t be idle during that waiting period.<\/p>\n
Members of We the Nuclear Free North, in Northern Ontario, and Protect Our Waterways \u2013 No Nuclear Waste, in Southwestern Ontario, attended the May 30 session of Ontario\u2019s Legislative Assembly to witness their petition being presented by Lise Vaugeois (NDP – Thunder Bay-Superior North), Sol Mamakwa (NDP – Kiiwetinoong) and Mike Schreiner (GPO Leader – Guelph). The petition calls for the adoption of the proximity principle with respect to the management of (nuclear waste) and for the government to direct Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to further their development of robust extended storage systems\u00a0at the reactor locations.<\/p>\n
In conjunction with attending the Legislature to witness the reading of the Petition, the dozen representatives of the two groups were present at Queen\u2019s Park for a related media conference\u00a0and for meetings with members of the Provincial parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had an excellent day at Queen\u2019s Park, and are ready for more,\u201d commented Anja van der Vlies, President of Protect Our Waterways \u2013 No Nuclear Waste, which is based in South Bruce, one of the areas under investigation by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for a deep geological repository for nuclear fuel waste.<\/p>\n
The groups plan to continue meeting with MPPs as well as with municipal and First Nation leaders, seeking their support and learning what additional concerns or questions they have, either about the Proximity Principle or about the NWMO\u2019s nuclear waste burial plan which would include 2-3 transport trucks of nuclear waste per day for 50 years, travelling an average of 1,600 kilometres one-way.<\/p>\n
The petitions bearing 1,141 signatures were presented in the Legislature. An additional 977 signatures had been collected but were not included in the packages presented at Queen\u2019s Park due to a formatting issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of those 2,200 signatures represents a conversation,\u201d explained Dodie LeGassick, member of We the Nuclear Free North and Nuclear Lead for Environment North.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hearing it repeatedly from public \u2013 the nuclear industry has to do better than their 1970s plan to ship and bury all of Canada\u2019s high-level waste in a single location and then abandon it. When people learn about the Proximity Principle they say, \u2018What can I sign to support that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional petitions are active among groups opposing the NWMO\u2019s proposed deep geological repository. Environment North has collected over 12,000 signatures on an online petition that opposes NWMO\u2019s nine-step siting plan, and Protect Our Waterways \u2013 No Nuclear Waste is circulating a petition informing the Ontario government that Ontario is not a willing host for a deep geological repository, and demanding programs that prioritize the investigation of technology alternatives.<\/p>\n
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) owns over 90% of the nuclear fuel waste in Canada, and is a major shareholder in the NWMO, which is seeking a site for a deep geological repository for all of Canada\u2019s nuclear fuel waste. Two sites are now short-listed: the Revell Site between Ignace and Dryden, and the South Bruce-Teeswater Site near Teeswater. The Provincial government can issue directives to OPG, which is a Provincial crown corporation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Groups that travelled to Queen\u2019s Park last week for the reading of their petition asking the Provincial government to adopt a Proximity Principle requiring that high-level radioactive waste be managed close to where it is generated may wait until mid-October to hear to back from the Provincial government. The government has 24 sitting days to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-northern-ontario"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 09:56:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61212,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61211\/revisions\/61212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}