Citizens concerned about potential mismanagement of radioactive waste in the Ottawa Valley have launched a petition calling for the Auditor General to assess how well Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is managing its activities, responsibilities and resources. They additionally ask that AECL be prohibited from issuing a contract to Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada, or any other private body, until the audit is complete and its results are made publicly available and discussed in Parliament. The petition is open for signatures until September 8th, 2025.
AECL operates Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a federally-owned research facility based in Chalk River, Ontario. In 2016, it was announced that a seven-story dump, the NDSF, would be created to hold radioactive and hazardous waste from the Chalk River Laboratories. The intended site would be 1 km away from the Ottawa River.
Following the announcement of the dump, local citizens, Indigenous nations, and environmental groups have challenged the decision in court, with two significant legal victories. First, the Kebaowek First Nation (KFN) successfully argued that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) failed to uphold it's duty to consult in a manner consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). In a second case brought by the KFN, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada, the federal court ruled that proponents of the dump failed to choose the location least harmful to biodiversity and species at-risk. This means that the issuing of CNL’s permit to destroy species at-risk has to be reconsidered by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Recently, AECL announced a new management contract to a consortium of US companies. This would mean that Canadian taxpayers would pay billions to these US companies, some of which operate US nuclear weapons facilities, over up to 20 years. The petition demands an independent audit of AECL's performance under the current contract before they award any contract to a private body.
