In order to sell nuclear energy as a “clean”, non-fossil energy, the consequential radioactive waste must be treated as a manageable externality. Although radioactive waste has been generated in Canada since the 1930s, there is still no permanent safe solution for its management. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has committed to find a “willing and informed host” community to site intermediate-level radioactive waste in a permanent deep geological repository (DGR), but is not applying that standard to the siting process for low-level radioactive waste in a permanent near surface disposal facility (NSDF). Contention over nuclear waste siting is thus growing in Canada, given that the current regulatory regime allows some communities to withhold consent while others cannot. For example, the Saugeen Ojibway Nations successfully opposed and withheld consent for the siting of a DGR on their traditional territory, while the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation oppose the NSDF siting on their lands, but are offered no procedural authority to withhold consent. Waste siting processes proceeding within a consultation framework, without allowing for consent, operate under a neocolonial framework that legitimizes state tools of oppression, while delegitimizing risk thresholds identified by the communities assuming the risk, and instead gaslight those in opposition. Moreover, Indigenous and settler communities facing these impositions are often marginalized socially, economically, or otherwise. The prevailing power dynamics favour state authority and western science over Indigenous jurisdiction and knowledge. Through analysis of public hearing documents and participant observation, this paper seeks to understand whether Indigenous-led impact assessments, embedded consent mechanisms, and redistributive justice approaches might, or might not, hold the potential to fundamentally re-balance the power dynamics so as to respect the interest of future generations.
Laura Tanguay, Ph.D. Candidate
York University
ID Abstract: 94