Press Releases
MEDIA RELEASE October 24, 2012 - PDF version including poll graphic & methodology
Stop uranium mining in the province until radioactive mine tailings are contained, say 68% of Saskatchewanians
Dr. Helen Caldicott coming to Saskatoon to speak on
“Our Toxic Nuclear Legacy: Let’s END Saskatchewan’s Growing Radioactive Footprint”
SASKATOON – More than two-thirds of Saskatchewanians believe that no more uranium mines should be approved in the province until the huge mess of toxic radioactive tailings, which have been left behind over 50 years of mining activity, have been contained and cleaned up. Oracalepoll Research Ltd. conducted a survey of 800 people in the province from September 10 to 16 in which respondents were presented with the following information and related question:
“Citing public record, some opponents have been critical of both government and industry for failing to effectively manage or contain radioactive uranium mine tailings in northern Saskatchewan over the past 50 years.
“Would you support or oppose a proposal to stop further uranium mining in Saskatchewan until all radioactive mine tailings have been satisfactorily and permanently contained?”
A 68% majority support the plan, while 23% would oppose it and 9% remain undecided.
The poll was commissioned by the HUES3 Campaign Committee and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).
Dr. Helen Caldicott, a physician and world-renowned speaker on nuclear issues, commented on the poll results. "It is morally indefensible that the federal and provincial governments and the uranium companies continue to rake in huge revenues from uranium mining, yet are unwilling to clean up the highly toxic radioactive tailings in Saskatchewan's North more than fifty years after they were left behind," she explained. "The public is right to say, Enough is enough!" Dr. Caldicott is the author of eight books and subject of the Oscar award winning film If You Love This Planet.
Dr. Caldicott will be in Saskatoon on Wednesday and Thursday, October 31 and November 1. Among several public commitments, she will speak at Third Avenue United Church at 7:30 PM, November 1, on “Our Toxic Nuclear Legacy: Let’s END Saskatchewan’s Growing Radioactive Footprint.” . Her talk will focus on the harmful effects of ionizing radiation.
For more information contact:
H: (306) 249-1392
C: (306) 220-0321
To schedule a media interview with Helen Caldicott while she is in Saskatoon, contact Karen Weingeist at (306) 653-1686.
MEDIA RELEASE October 17, 2012 - PDF version including poll graphic & methodology.
Saskatchewan public opinion survey tells CCNI Nuclear Centre, “No nukes in the tar sands!”
Helen Caldicott coming to Saskatoon to “raise hell” about the nuclear industry’s encroachment in Saskatchewan
SASKATOON -- The Saskatchewan public does not feel that it is safe to use nuclear reactors for oil sands extraction, according to Oraclepoll Research Ltd. survey results released today by the HUES3 Campaign Committee. By a margin of three to one, respondents said they do not feel safe with such plans, even though the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) at the University of Saskatchewan has accepted millions of dollars in government and corporate funding to explore the feasibility of developing small nuclear reactors for this purpose. (See backgrounder documents.)
Oraclepoll posed the question: “The provincial government and the nuclear industry have recently pledged approximately $40 million to create the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) at the University of Saskatchewan. One of its purposes is to research and design nuclear reactors that can be used as an energy source for Oil Sands (Tar Sands) extraction or for the electrical grid. . . . How safe do you feel that it will be to use nuclear reactors for oil sands extraction?” In response, 45% of Saskatchewanians said it was “totally unsafe;” only 15% said they thought it was “totally safe.” (A graphic representation and detailed methodology appear in the following pages.)
The HUES3 (Health, Uranium, Environment: Sustainability, Survival, Solidarity) Campaign Committee was formed earlier this year in part to highlight the fact that the Saskatchewan government and corporations like Hitachi have been funneling millions of dollars to CCNI for this kind of research since last year.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, physician and world-renowned Australian anti-nuclear activist, was so alarmed to hear about how the University of Saskatchewan has been co-opted into the nuclear industry agenda that she volunteered to come to Saskatoon to “raise hell,” as she put it. “It is astonishing that both government and university have fallen under the dark influence of the nuclear industry, even though the general public knows instinctively that neither building nuclear reactors nor depositing radioactive wastes in Saskatchewan’s north is safe or desirable. The impact on public health would be devastating,” she explained.
Dr. Caldicott will be in Saskatoon on Wednesday and Thursday, October 31 and November 1. Among several public commitments, she will speak at Third Avenue United Church at 7:30 PM, November 1, on “Our Toxic Nuclear Legacy: Let’s END Saskatchewan’s Growing Radioactive Footprint.”
For more information contact:
H: (306) 249-1392
C: (306) 220-0321
To schedule a media interview with Helen Caldicott while she is in Saskatoon,
contact Karen Weingeist H: (306) 653-1686 or W: (306) 966-4483.
https://sites.google.com/site/cleangreensaskca/Home/huesss-campaign
MEDIA RELEASE September 26, 2012 - PDF version including poll results
Seventy-five percent do not want nuclear waste disposal sites in Saskatchewan, says public opinion poll
Three-quarters of the people in Saskatchewan don't want radioactive waste brought into the province and deposited in underground storage. That's the message from a public opinion survey conducted from September 10 -16, 2012. The study was commissioned by CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment) and the HUES3 Campaign (Health, Uranium, Environment: Sustainability, Survival, Solidarity).
“The nuclear industry has not found a way to dispose of the over 270,000 tonnes of high-grade radioactive waste generated around the world. Now the industry knows for certain that no one wants it brought to Saskatchewan," says Dr. Warren Bell, Salmon Arm, BC, a prominent member of both CAPE and the HUES3 Campaign.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) continues to target three communities in Saskatchewan as sites for radioactive waste reprocessing and disposal: Pinehouse, Creighton and English River First Nation.
The failure by government to ban the importation of radioactive waste (as done by Manitoba and Quebec) means Brad Wall’s administration in Saskatchewan is allowing the NWMO to create totally unnecessary tensions and division within northern communities. (The NWMO is an industry organization tasked with disposing of the mounting waste from nuclear reactors in Ontario, New Brunswick, Quebec and the U.S.)
The citizens of Saskatchewan, through the UDP Hearings in 2009, rejected high-level radioactive waste disposal in the province. The recent Oraclepoll Research Ltd. survey asked several questions intended to measure how public opinion on nuclear industry expansion compares today with opinion in 2009. Among other results, it found that the Government does not have a mandate to allow waste disposal to proceed here. 75% of citizens are opposed; only 15% support the plan; another 10% are undecided. (See attached report.)
QUESTION POSED: “The Canadian nuclear industry wants to transport high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, to northern Saskatchewan for storage. Do you support or oppose this plan?”
STATISTICAL RESPONSE: 18 years of age or older, 800 persons, margin of error +/- 3.5%, 19/20 times.
For more information contact:
D’Arcy Hande OR Candyce Paul
HUES3 Campaign Committee for Future Generations
H: (306) 249-1392 H: (306) 288-2079
C: (306) 220-0321 C: (306) 288-3157
https://sites.google.com/site/cleangreensaskca/Home/huesss-campaign
MEDIA RELEASE September 21, 2012 - PDF version
Is the nuclear industry behind voter intimidation and voting irregularities in the September 19 Pinehouse municipal election?
BEAUVAL, SK -- Many allegations have been made, and at least one affidavit has been sworn, with regard to the highly irregular Pinehouse municipal election in northern Saskatchewan on Wednesday, September 19. Yet even before the ballots were cast, the provincial ministry of government affairs and the local RCMP detachment refused to step in and provide the monitoring and supervision requested by several seriously concerned voters. Local residents wonder what the reason is for this neglect, and some have theories to offer. They believe the nuclear industry is behind it all. And the result is an extremely divided small community of just 1,000 people.
The tension in the community arises from a concerted campaign by the industry-driven Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to co-opt the Pinehouse village council into hosting a deep geological repository for radioactive wastes from Eastern Canada. Those in the community who oppose these negotiations wished to express their dissatisfaction at the polls when voting for village councilors. But they were met with thinly veiled threats and intimidation.
Debbie Mihalicz of Beauval said, “Canada and the United Nations have poured billions of dollars into ensuring a fair democratic process in oppressed countries around the world like Syria and Afghanistan. Recent events in the Northern Village of Pinehouse, Saskatchewan point to the sad truth, that when people within our own borders require this same protection, they are denied.”
Ms. Mihalicz went on to describe specific irregularities that were willfully overlooked:
• the ballot box remained unsealed for the duration of election day;
• one voter was denied the right to cast a ballot;
• several instances of voter intimidation; and
• a report of an illegal presence inside the polling booth area, apparently photographed by the RCMP.
Some of these suspicious practices were already evident in the advance poll on September 12. Concerns were raised then, but they were ignored by provincial government officials. Sandra Cuffe, a journalist with The Dominion magazine, filed a report on September 18 describing several of the abuses and laying out the background to this highly charged situation. (See attached.)
http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/intimidation-and-irregularities-cloud-pinehouse-election/12812
For more information contact:
Candyce Paul OR Pat McNamara
H: (306) 288-2079 (306) 288-7933
C: (306) 288-3157
https://sites.google.com/site/cleangreensaskca/Home/huesss-campaign
MEDIA RELEASE
September 21, 2012
Letter to Minister of Government Relations, Jim Reiter - PDF version
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan September 21, 2012
The Honourable Jim Reiter Minister of Government Relations Regina, Saskatchewan
Dear Minister Reiter:
Our HUES3 Campaign Committee is deeply troubled about reports of voter intimidation and voting irregularities coming out of the northern Village of Pinehouse on September 19. As you can see from the attached HUES3 media release and from Sandra Cuffe’s news report posted to The Dominion magazine, serious breaches of election procedures appear to have occurred. These irregularities are egregious enough to call into question the legitimacy of the whole municipal election process at Pinehouse this month.
The stakes in this year’s election in Pinehouse could not be much higher. Local citizens are caught up in a contentious, even acrimonious debate over their village council’s clandestine negotiations with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to establish a nuclear waste dump in the community. NWMO appears to have offered inducements to the council without the ordinary voters being aware of what was going on. It is clear that several local officials, if not NWMO itself, have an acutely vested interest in the results of this particular election. Those Pinehouse citizens who attempted to raise their concerns in the context of this election campaign were intimidated and, they believe, received thinly veiled threats if they questioned the local council’s agenda in this regard. Reports of obvious breaches in election protocol were raised with officials in your department immediately after the advance poll on September 12, but they were met with a tepid, indifferent response.
Despite the provincial government’s known affinity to the nuclear industry, it nevertheless does have the solemn responsibility to ensure free and fair elections throughout the province. Several witnesses in Pinehouse have come forward to give evidence about the voting irregularities there, despite a very real fear of retribution from local officials for having done so. In order to protect them, and to ensure the integrity of the municipal vote, we strongly urge you to launch a thorough investigation into the Pinehouse election, if necessary to overturn its results, and then to call a new, closely supervised election at the earliest opportunity.
On behalf of the HUES3 Campaign:
Dr. Warren Bell (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment),
Dr. Dale Dewar (Physicians for Global Survival),
D’Arcy Hande,
Candyce Paul (Committee for Future Generations), and
Karen Weingeist (Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan)
c.c. Hon. Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan
Mr. John Nilson, Leader of the Opposition
Mr. Victor Lau, Leader, Saskatchewan Green Party
(b.c.c.’d widely to media and others)
https://sites.google.com/site/cleangreensaskca/Home/huesss-campaign