Dear Saugeen Shores Council: 

I was about to congratulate you in this open letter for deferring January 9 your motion to invite the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to explore the feasibility of siting a national repository for high-level radioactive waste inside the municipal boundaries – until I learned the deferral might well last only until May 15 before any summer residents arrive.

I’ve been coming up to your community every summer for 60 years to a small family cottage in Gobles Grove. We pay almost as much in property taxes on the cottage as we do on our home in Ottawa. It’s hard, but we love your community. And now you seem to want to stop me, and people like me, from having any face-to-face input on a momentous and very divisive issue that will have long-range implications for our shared community. 

Even worse, when you talk about the importance of educating people in Saugeen Shores on the issue, you seem to assume it will be enough simply to have the NWMO and Bruce Power provide the expertise. This is not how you inform people on a difficult and complex issue in a democracy. This is how you do propaganda. 

A national high-level radioactive waste repository is not just more of the same for a “nuclear-wise” Saugeen Shores.  

Many nations, far more dependent on nuclear power than Canada, are struggling to deal with the enormously contentious issues raised by the long-term disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The difficulty is that the location of a national repository and its very desirability are controversial matters upon which even informed experts disagree. 

If you’re serious about bringing the people of Saugeen Shores up to speed on this issue, then you should make sure that experts from both sides can participate fully in your information sessions.

Please defer consideration of your motion until at least Fall 2012. This issue is too important not to have a free and fully informed debate involving every ratepayer in Saugeen Shores. 

John Sifton

Ottawa