In early September 2021, during the federal election period, CRED-NB sent an email to 45 candidates in all 10 federal ridings in New Brunswick. Emails were unavailable for 10 candidates.
A summary of the questions and responses is HERE. The full questions are below.
1. Question about nuclear energy and the climate crisis
The August 2021 report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change signaled a ““a code red for humanity” and highlighted the urgent need to take action to reduce carbon emissions and to slow and limit global warming.
The cheapest way to reduce our dependence on carbon-based energy production is through energy conservation, while the fastest and cheapest way to produce new low-carbon energy is wind and solar, with some room for geothermal. In recent years the nuclear industry has been attempting to recalibrate by promoting “small modular reactors” as a means of reducing Canada’s carbon footprint.
Unfortunately, the conceptual line of reactors under review in Canada and planned for New Brunswick will be even more expensive per unit of energy and will still produce highly radioactive wastes. From a climate perspective, they would be too little too late, with even the first prototypes in the early design stage and not expected to be under construction until the 2030s at the earliest, will take many years to build, and have no guarantee that they will work as promised. With an urgent need to reduce our carbon releases by 2030, we simply don’t have the time to test out another set of nuclear experiments. And we will NOT achieve the necessary progress in fighting climate change if we invest in these very slow, very costly, very speculative technologies.
Q1: Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for proven technologies ready to deploy now, do you support a moratorium on federal public funding for speculative nuclear reactors, including those described as “small modular reactors”?
___ Yes
___ No
___ Undecided
Additional comments:
2. Question about nuclear waste
Earlier this year, the Wolastoq Grand Council issued a resolution on nuclear energy and nuclear waste. You can read it here:https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/03/12/wolastoq-grand-council-resolution-on-nuclear-energy-and-waste-on-traditional-wolastoq-territory/
Q2: Do you support the Wolastoq Grand Council resolution opposing nuclear energy and nuclear waste on traditional Wolastoq territory?
___ Yes
___ No
___ Undecided
Additional comments:
3. Question about informed consent with Indigenous peoples on new nuclear development
- Article 29(1) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources.”
- Article 29(2) of the UNDRIP states that “States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.”
- Article 32(1) of the UNDRIP states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources.”
- Nuclear reactors, regardless of size, produce by-products and radioactive waste material that must be contained and will be toxic and dangerous to human health for thousands of years.
- Several Indigenous political organizations have passed resolutions rejecting the proposed Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) processes for the handling and management of the radioactive materials produced by nuclear reactors. Both Natural Resources Canada and NWMO, continue to ignore these resolutions and attempt to identify and fund other Indigenous organizations and communities to counter the positions being taken by these Indigenous organizations and communities opposed to the proposals being created by NWMO.
Q3: Do you support free, prior, and informed consent with Indigenous peoples on new nuclear development, including modular nuclear reactors. uranium mines and radioactive waste facilities?
___ Yes
___ No
___ Undecided
Additional comments:
4. Question about nuclear weapons
The federal government has spent more than $50 million of public funds on a technology to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. As reported in the Financial Post and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, non-proliferation scientists and experts in the United States have written to Prime Minister Trudeau, raising concerns about the nuclear weapons proliferation implications of federal support for this project and calling for a high-level review.
Q4: Do you support the call for a high-level review, including by international experts, of both the nuclear weapons proliferation and environmental implications of New Brunswick’s plutonium-extraction project?
___ Yes
___ No
___ Undecided
Additional comments:
Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) 