halt impact assessment of deep geological repository

The Seaborn Panel (also known as the Seaborn Commission or the Environmental Assessment Review Panel) recommended in its 1998 report that Canada's nuclear waste be managed by an agency at "arm's length" from both the nuclear industry and the government. The government oversight of the nuclear industry should be reorganized to ensure accountability to parliament. The impact assessment of the deep geological repository should be halted until this happens.

 The management of Canada's nuclear waste should definitely fall under the Ministry of the Environment including oversight of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and not by the Minister of Natural Resouces. Promotion should be left to the industry itself. The nuclear industry is highly subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer and this finance at present is exempt from accountability to parliament.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) in Canada is not a government department, but rather a not-for-profit corporation established by nuclear electricity producers under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act (NFWA). It's corporate status allows it to operate without public accountability for it's finances to either electricity ratepayers or taxpayers. The NWMO is subject to direct oversight by the federal government, specifically through the Minister of Natural Resources Canada. Again, this organization should be operating at arms length and in the public interest instead of by the nuclear industry.

Concernedly, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is now an American nuclear waste consortium operating under Contractor-Operated (GoCo) contracts that are cost plus and again are not subject to parliamentary accountability. CNL could end up being the operating contractor of the deep geological repository that will hopefully not go ahead. They are already importing nuclear waste from the Untied States to Chalk River.

Public oversight of the nuclear industry is dangerously lacking. The impact assessment of the deep geological repository should be halted until parliamentary oversight of the nuclear industry is re-established. The best Northerners can say is, not one nano-gram of nuclear waste here, now or forever.