Premier confronted with Liberal nuclear waste legacy

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Greenpeace activists protest outside Premier Dalton McGuinty’s campaign office in Ottawa.

"Dalton McGuinty needs to state publicly where he plans to store Ontario's stockpiles of radioactive waste before he creates yet more waste for future generations. If he is not comfortable storing waste in Ottawa, he owes it to Ontarians to say where it will be stored," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. 

As Premier, Dalton McGuinty is responsible for the Liberal's plan to spend over $40 billion building 14,000 MW of nuclear stations - the largest nuclear building boom in the world - that will increase Ontario's production of radioactive waste. Despite this massive commitment to nuclear power, the party has failed to say where it would put the high-level radioactive waste (spent fuel) from its nuclear energy plan, often passing on responsibility to the federal government.

"Dalton McGuinty's biggest legacy will be a million years of radioactive waste," said Stensil. "Passing the buck to the federal government is not an option. You make it, you own it. This government needs to take responsibility for its policies and tell Ontarians where and how this waste will be stored for a million years before building new reactors."

Before the release of the Liberal nuclear energy plan in 2006, some high-profile Liberals made public statements against storing waste in Ontario. Premier McGuinty said Ontario "would have its say" if it was selected for a radioactive waste dump. Ontario Northern Affairs Minister Bartollucci has said that Northerners will "raise hell" if the federal government tries to dump waste in the North. 

"The nuclear waste problem is not solved, so it's unethical for the McGuinty government to move forward with its nuclear plans," said Stensil. "We have the technology, know-how and resources to build a clean energy supply. All that's lacking is the political will."

There is already over 30,000 tonnes of high-level radioactive waste at reactor sites in Ontario. A federal agency, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), is currently looking for a community to step forward to permanently take the waste. 

Environmentalists say that solving the problem of radioactive waste is similar to any effective and socially acceptable waste management strategy: it depends on stopping nuclear waste production.