THUNDER BAY – Pays Plat First Nation member Sharlene Bourdeau Waboose was clear about her reason for participating in Wednesday’s rally at Waverley Park.
“Because Pays Plat is against the burial of nuclear waste in the North,” she said just before the rally got underway.
Leaders “have to think of the next seven generations,” she said, and the deep geological repository’s proponents “are not thinking of the next seven generations.
“I'm thinking of a couple of hundred years from now. Something that’s manmade is not going to last, then it’s going to poison the environment.”
Bourdeau Waboose was among nearly 200 people who gathered in the north-side city park for a rally against nuclear waste storage in Northwestern Ontario.
Julia Rusnak, a Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation councillor, said her own reason for being at the rally was the same as everyone else’s: “to stop the nuclear waste, because we just don’t want it here or anywhere in our region.”
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is considering a site between Ignace and Dyden for a deep-underground repository for spent nuclear fuel.
The industry-funded body has said it will choose between that site and a location in southwestern Ontario by the end of this year.
But 12 First Nations in the region stated their opposition in an open letter to the nuclear organization last week.
“The burial of nuclear waste within the earth is against the teaching of our collective culture and goes against our beliefs and way of life,” stated the letter, addressed to NWMO president and CEO Laurie Swami.
Among the letter’s signatories was Chief Rudy Turtle of Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong) First Nation – which is also a founding member of the Land Defence Alliance, a coalition of northern First Nations that organized the rally.
Turtle said a similar rally was held in the spring “but I feel that it was necessary to do it again because it’s very important to Northwestern Ontario.
“I want to stress it's not just First Nations that are opposed to it,” he added. “It’s also citizens from Dryden and (other communities) that are opposed to this nuclear waste.”
Nuclear waste could “do very extensive damage to the environment,” Turtle said.
"We want to protect our animals, our land and our people.
“It’s not about money, it’s about the environment,” said Gull Bay Chief Wilfred King, who also signed the letter.
“It’s about the longevity of our communities,” King said. “It's about, you know, our communities living off the land.
“The land has supported us since time immemorial, and it’s important that we have to take care of it, because it always takes care of us.
“We’ve got to make sure that we leave the land intact as much as possible so that our future generations can utilize the land in the future.”
The other First Nations that sent the letter opposing nuclear waste in the region were Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, Wapekeka, Neskantaga, Muskrat Dam, Ojibways of Onigaming, Wauzhushk Onigum (Rat Portage), Fort William, Netmizaaggamig (Pic Mobert), Shoal Lake 40 and Gakijiwanong (Lac La Croix).
