INDIGENOUS VIEWS ON NUCLEAR ENERGY AND RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Indigenous nations and communities continue to speak up and express their opposition to nuclear energy and radioactive waste.

The Passamaquoddy Recognition Group (PRGI) and the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, co-produced a report and video to amplify these Indigenous voices.

FOREWORD BY CHIEF HUGH AKAGI I represent the Peskotomuhkati, the people who welcomed the first Europeans to this land in 1604.

They spent the winter on an island in our territory and they needed our help. Now, 420 years later, I think you need our help again.

Forty years ago, the nuclear industry built a nuclear reactor in our homeland at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy. They did this without our consent.

The reactor created hundreds of tons of used nuclear fuel - high level nuclear waste - that will remain toxic to all living things for hundreds of thousands of years, and this stockpile continues to grow. That waste is sitting in a cooling pool and in aging concrete silos at the site. Who believes that leaving nuclear waste in my territory for thousands of years is a good idea?

We are told not to worry, it’s not a problem, the next generation will handle it.

Now they are saying they will move the waste to the territory of a Nation in Ontario. Why would I want Lepreau’s high level waste, foisted upon another Nation? The industry’s plan includes moving used nuclear fuel throughout numerous territories in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. It involves storing the waste in someone else’s backyard. So, am I going to consent to that? Am I going to say well, as long as it’s not in mine? No. I stand with the other Indigenous leaders who do not want the experience that we are having: thousands of years of nuclear waste that nobody really knows what to do with. This report includes statements about nuclear energy and nuclear waste by Indigenous Nations in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The analysis shows that these Nations do not want nuclear waste on their territories. That includes the waste from the Point Lepreau reactor. We want the waste properly stored and looked after for the thousands of years it will take until the waste is no longer dangerous.

The Joint Declaration between the Anishinabek Nation and the Iroquois Caucus on the Transport and Abandonment of Radioactive Waste has five simple principles that I can stand behind:

• No abandonment • Monitored and retrievable storage • Better containment, more packaging • Away from major water bodies • No imports or exports

This report is mostly about nuclear waste. However, we need to get to the root of the problem: stop making the waste!

We’ve got to get back to Indigenous values. When I grew up, I thought I was poor. It took me a while to realize just how rich I was to have clean air, non-polluted soil, and a high diversity of fish in large numbers. I don’t have that anymore. Every child needs to see what I saw. They need to see those fish. They need to see those trees. They need healthy air. And they do not need nuclear contamination for thousands of years.

For years, the nuclear industry has been trying to convince me that they are the solution. I am debunking this.

And I’ve got good people around helping me. The CEDAR project includes experts who have written a great deal about why nuclear power is not the solution.

My message is simple and clear. Help me preserve the future.

Let us help you: work with us to stop the production of nuclear waste. Together, let’s make sure the existing waste is not abandoned but monitored and cared for to keep it isolated from future generations and all my relations. Chief Hugh Akagi Peskotomuhkati Nation at Skutik

FOREWORD BY CHIEF RON TREMBLAY

My traditional name translates to Morningstar burning and I represent the Crow clan through my Mother’s lineage and the Wolf clan through my father’s bloodline. I am a citizen of the river we call Wolastoq, Beautiful and Bountiful River that flows through our homeland Wolastokuk. This report raises many concerns that Indigenous people have about nuclear waste. My concern as a traditional Chief is if we export the waste from the Point Lepreau nuclear site in New Brunswick and deliver it to Ontario through over 425 Indigenous communities, there will be vast possibilities of spills or accidents. As for burying it into the earth in other Indigenous homelands, we follow extremely strict protocols in our way of traditional governance. We don’t feel that we should transport that waste and place it in the homelands of our sisters and brothers of various nations.

More than forty years ago, when the Point Lepreau reactor was being built, we were never consulted. If we had been consulted back then, we would have raised major concerns about nuclear waste.

I’d like to share a parable. Just imagine if we built birch bark canoes without paddles, going through a river without a paddle guiding and directing where you’re going. Today it would be like if you made a vehicle without brakes or without safety features like seatbelts or airbags. That’s exactly what is occurring: they created all these nuclear sites without any future idea or intent of where to store the nuclear waste. This is our concern.

We believe that the Earth is our Mother, and that she has been violated, she has been hurt, she has been raped, she has been damaged for far, far too long.

It’s comparable to what’s happening within our nations with Indigenous women and girls and two spirited people. Many factors point to why the waste should not be transported. It’s more than 2,000 kilometres from Point Lepreau in New Brunswick to the proposed dumping site in Ontario. That’s a long haul, and incredibly dangerous. Before we move forward, we need to really think about what to do with this waste. The proposal is to store it in a large hole within the earth. What’s below the earth? What are the harms to the aquifers and to the life inside Earth? Will this open the opportunity to various countries like the United States to come and dump their waste into that site? Those are my concerns. Nuclear reactors are fuelled with uranium mined on Indigenous lands. Go ask our sisters and brothers of the Navajo Nation about the despair they live with, from the birth defects and stillborn children and the high rates of cancer within their nation. Our homeland is covered by the 1725/26 Peace and Friendship Treaties that did not surrender any lands or resources. And I always say that our peoples from the Wabanaki Confederacy did not surrender one piece of Earth, one drop of water or one breath of air.

In fact, section six of the Peace and Friendship treaties clearly states that “Any Indian who is molested or damaged will receive satisfaction and reparation.” And we have not received the “Satisfaction or Reparation” to this day.

Those treaties are law, but the provincial and federal governments refuse to honour those treaties. This is the situation we are in today. If they would have honoured the treaties from day one, we would not be talking about nuclear waste.

Our treaties have to be respected and honoured.

Wolastoqewi Kci-Sakom spasaqsit possesom - Ron Tremblay (Wolastoq Grand Chief morningstar burning) Kahkakuhsuwakutom naka Malsomuwakutom (Crow & Wolf Clan) Wolastoq Nil naka Nil Wolastoq - i am Wolastoq and Wolastoq is me