The process of choosing the site to permanently store Canada’s highly radioactive waste deep underground set a world standard for public consultation that resulted in two communities willing to host the facility.

Or the industry-led process was badly flawed and manipulative and led to a site and an unproven technology that’s not only dangerous for local residents but all communities along a 1,700-kilometere route where the waste will be transported.

Those are the two polar-opposite perspectives on selecting the site for what’s known as Canada’s Deep Geological Repository, or DGR – a project expected to cost at least $26 billion.

Canada “is setting the world standard” in public engagement leading to acceptance and trust, said Rumina Velshi (photo at right), strategic advisor to Torys LLP and former president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), which led the public engagement and consultation process to select the site for the nuclear waste repository, “clearly sets the benchmark on how to do it right,” Velshi said during a webinar sponsored by the nuclear industry.

“Canada has not only strong policies and strategies, we’ve actually now selected a site. There’s a real solution that we have in place,” she said.

Suraj Persaud (photo at left), associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering at Queen’s University, agreed, saying: “In Canada, we have an internationally accepted solution to the long-term storage of nuclear waste.”

“It’s essentially a giant mine,” he said. “Technically, it’s incredibly sound. And in terms of social engagement, it’s very, very sound.”

Persaud said the NWMO, with whom he works, has been “very good” with reconciliation efforts and “building the social engagement aspect with Indigenous communities.”

Canada’s nuclear industry has managed its waste well for the last 70 years without incident, said Tracey Primeau (photo at right), founder and principal of Agile Bear Consulting and a board director at Ontario Power Generation, who worked in the nuclear industry for 35 years.

Millions of bundles of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel has been stored onsite at Canada’s nuclear reactors, either on the surface or in large swimming pool-like ponds, for decades.

In order to build a permanent solution the nuclear industry is paying into a fund to build the Deep Geological Repository, Primeau noted.

The solar and wind industries don’t know where all their waste is and they’d didn’t fund a plan to permanently dispose of it, she said.

Waste from the solar and wind industries, such as used wind turbine blades and solar panels, isn’t radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years – unlike nuclear waste.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) has invested nearly $1 billion so far to build Canada’s first small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) at the Darlington, Ontario nuclear site.

The CIB is looking at making additional investments at Darlington and will “be alongside” to support provinces interested in deploying SMRs, including New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta, said Ehren Cory (photo at right), CEO of the CIB.

“We have a unique opportunity [as a nation] in front of us,” he said. “We have the entire nuclear cycle in our borders, from fuel to storage [of waste].”

“We have a labour force and an expertise and a know-how that very few countries in the world have,” Cory added.

“It’s a limited time advantage we have. We all have a responsibility – private sector lenders, Crown corporations, the owners of technology and projects – to be much bolder and more ambitious in getting a head start.”

Did site-selection process show a compelling demonstration of host communities?

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) that since 2010 has led the public engagement process and the search for willing communities to host the Deep Geological Repository (DGR) is an industry-led organization.

NWMO’s annual budget – $187 million in 2024 – is paid for by Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power, Hydro Quebec and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The NWMO is not subject to access-to-information requests.

NWMO announced on November 28, 2024, that it had selected the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation and the Township of Ignace in northwestern Ontario as the host communities for the DGR.

The proposed DGR site is in the headwaters of the Wabigoon River, about 20 kilometres upstream from the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation.

Ignace held a community vote on whether the town should host the DRG, with 77 percent of voters saying yes. The Wabigon Lake Ojibway First Nation voted in favour of progressing to a “site characterization process” for the DGR in the First Nation’s traditional territory.

The NWMO’s process in the Township of Ignace and with the Wabigon Lake Ojibway First Nation was flawed and failed to produce the NWMO’s stated requirement of having a compelling demonstration of communities willing to host the nuclear waste site, said Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer with We the Nuclear Free North.

During a webinar hosted by Northwatch, a group opposed to the DGR plan, O’Connor pointed out that the Wabigon Lake Ojibway First Nation’s media release specifically stated: “The yes vote does not signify approval of the project; rather, it demonstrates the Nation’s willingness to enter the next phase of in-depth environmental and technical assessments, to determine safety and site suitability.”

The NWMO distributed money and financial inducements to persuade municipalities and local populations that taking highly radioactive nuclear waste would be a good idea, O’Connor said.

“To my mind that is unethical. It is socially wrong for them to do,” she said. The NWMO’s process of distributing monies isn’t against the law, she added, “but that doesn’t mean [it is] not unethical.”

South Bruce, Ontario – another community that had been considered by the NWMO – has received more than $25 million from the NWMO since 2012, said Bill Noll, a director of Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste.

“We just don’t trust the NWMO,” he said. “NWMO never reveals all the facts.”

Noll said the NWMO never presented enough information for South Bruce to be adequately informed about the DGR project.  “We don’t believe this is a good project for any community,” he said. “And we’re going to continue our fight against it.”

Although the NWMO maintains it has two communities willing to host the DGR, the Eagle Lake First Nation in December launched a challenge in Federal Court to the NWMO’s site selection. The First Nation is asking for a judicial review, contending that the NWMO failed to properly recognize Eagle Lake First Nation, about 25 km southwest of Dryden, as a host community for the site.

In addition, a resolution by the Grand Council Treaty #3 Chiefs-in-Council declared opposition to nuclear waste storage near Ignace.

 “The opposition in northwestern Ontario continues and it remains very strong,” O’Connor said.

Nuclear waste disposal site presents unacceptable risks, opponents argue

Based on technical and other reports on the NWMO’s website, the Deep Geological Repository “is still vey much under development and at the conceptual stage,” said Brennain Lloyd (photo at right), project coordinator with Northwatch and a member of We the Nuclear Free North.

“How can a community be informed when the NWMO project is still not fully described and still in fact in development?” she asked.

 Noll agreed, saying: “The concept of a DGR is only a theory and without operating experience to validate [it]. It is not a scientifically proven undertaking. I don’t know how you could classify it as a safe undertaking at this point.”

Lloyd said the NWMO’s own technical reports indicate that the process to be used to package the highly radioactive nuclear fuel for transport by trucks to the DGR is still in development and hasn’t been fully described.

Two to three trucks per day for 50 years-plus will be required to transport the nuclear waste on average 1,700 kilometres from nuclear reactors at Pickering, Darlington and Bruce in southern Ontario, she said.

 Communities along the transportation route will be exposed to low-level radiation from the waste – exposure that will increase when the trucks stop or slow down due to rest breaks, construction, accidents or natural extreme weather events, Lloyd said.

“The underground chambers where the waste will be placed will be so highly radioactive that robots will need to do the placement. People can’t be present,” she noted.

The radioactive releases from the underground environment will be constantly vented to the surface and filtered only when there’s an exceptionally large release, she said.

Since the waste remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, “eventually the containers [holding the spent nuclear fuel waste] will fail and there will be releases and they will make their way to the surface and surface waters,” Lloyd said.

Moreover, NWMO’s description of the used fuel packaging plan and the DGR are currently are being designed to handle spent nuclear fuel bundles from Canada’s CANDU reactors, not new forms of radioactive waste produced by small modular reactors, she said.

Current designs “certainly could not accommodate waste from some of the small modular reactor designs that we’re seeing come forward, like the BWRX 300 at the Darlington site,” Lloyd said.

NWMO still has this very conceptual continued process of development of the project, which “suggests that we might be heading for more of the same if and when this project actually goes to impact assessments in 2028,” she said.

According to NWMO’s schedule, the impact assessment will be approved in 2030, the license to construct the DGR granted in 2033, and transportation of nuclear waste to the DGR to start in 2040 to 2045.

“The NWMO has a free hand. It lacks rules, regulation and government oversight,” Lloyd said.

Northwatch and other groups opposed to the DGR are asking for:

• Accountability: Oversight by the federal government and revisions to the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act to make the NWMO operate by a clear set of rules.
• Transparency: Make the NWMO subject to access-to-information requests and require NWMO to disclose contractual and financial commitments.
• Fairness: Make the regulatory process open and equitable, with no backroom deals or off-the-record negotiations and with a timeline that accommodates public and Indigenous engagement.

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