How Might Saskatchewan’s Grass-Roots Respond to The UDP’s “P

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How Might Saskatchewan’s Grass-Roots Respond to The UDP’s “Public Forums”?

By Jim Harding

Published in R-Town News on April 10, 2009

On March 31st, the Sask Party government’s Uranium Development Partnership (UDP) released its report “Capturing the full potential of the uranium value chain in Saskatchewan.”

With members of the very nuclear corporations that would benefit from nuclear expansion, the credibility of the UDP was already compromised.

There is something very disturbing that while it sat on the UDP, Bruce Power was distributing 50,000 copies of its 24-page booklet promoting nuclear power plants on the North Sask River.

The main owners of Bruce Power (Cameco and Trans-Canada), who would profit from uranium sales and transmission expansion, had additional seats on the UDP.

Talk about stacking the deck!

The government is trying to salvage the flawed process by holding nine hastily conceived “public forums” from May 19th to June 5th.

With recommendations to expand the nuclear industry already made, what influence can “public input” really have?

Is there any way to turn this political travesty into a rebirth of participatory democracy in our province?

The grass-roots will likely continue raising concerns about nuclear corporations being given the inside track on energy policy, as when 450 people attended the Save Our Sask (SOS) meeting March 9th at Paradise Hill, near Lloydminster.

The forums could be an opportunity to factually challenge the UDP and Sask Party promoting nuclear power as “green energy.” Recent polls suggest “greenwashing” is appealing to only about one-third of the population.

Nuclear corporations who have long promoted Saskatchewan as a nuclear waste site got their way with the UDP. But knowing public opinion opposes this, the Sask Party government quickly dissociated itself from this recommendation.

The grass-roots will likely remind Brad Wall’s Ministers that you can’t have nuclear power without nuclear wastes, and if nuclear plants were built here, as the UDP recommends, we’d become the target for a nuclear dump.

More information about radioactive tritium leaks at the Chalk River nuclear plant, the squandering of $400 million taxpayers’ money on two failed Maple reactors, and that medical isotopes can be produced in a safer manner, might take the wind out of the UDP’s recommendation that Saskatchewan get into the isotope business.

The UDP process is ass-backward.

The potential of us going forward on a sustainable energy path was never given a fair or objective consideration.

The UDP is primarily about creating a business expansion plan for the nuclear industry at public cost.

The upcoming forums therefore need to be independently monitored so that the views expressed aren’t misrepresented through the media to try to legitimize the UDP’s not-so-hidden agenda.

Preparing for these public forums could be an opportunity for those concerned about water quantity and quality, environmental health, nuclear waste, nuclear proliferation and the taxpayer being exploited to form networks to study and promote renewable energy and a sustainable society.

The influence of these sustainability networks would surely outlast the tainted influence of the UDP.

Next week I’ll look at how Sask Power’s budget and policy trends could make room for the UDP’s nuclear business plan.
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Jim Harding is a retired professor of environmental and justice studies and writes a column "Saskatchewan Sustainability" for the weekly R-Town News chain.

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You can locate the UDP report and/or give input at
www.saskuranium.ca or mail your views to P.O. Box. 7, Regina, SK, S4P 2Z5.

Meetings are at Prince Albert, Buffalo Narrows, The Battlefords, Lloydminster, Yorkton, Estevan, Swift Current, Regina and Saskatoon.