Of Canadian Sovereignty and Nuclear Waste
by J. B. Gerald 

                               While the U.S. has nearly a hundred thousand tons of nuclear waste without proper storage, its nuclear industry is planning expansion. So is Canada's. Canadian Defence talks of Canadian nuclear powered submarines to patrol the Arctic. U.S. President Trump has ordered small mobile nuclear microreactors placed at army bases throughout 48 states by 2028.

      Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has planned a near-surface nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River Ontario. This project places a low radiation level nuclear waste dump about 140 kilometers upstream from Ottawa. An accident or mistake would risk the Ottawa River down to the St. Lawrence and beyond, and all the communities along the way reliant on the river's contribution to groundwater and drinking water. To think generations into the future ultimately the earth is likely to overcome attempts at containing radiation.

      With some lack of concern for 8 million New Yorkers the U.S. nuclear industry placed Indian Point nuclear plant on the Hudson River some thirty miles (48 kilometers) above New York City. It has been closed. South Carolina's Savannah River Nuclear Plant - about 193 kilometers above Savannah Georgia "temporarily" stores a portion of U.S. and foreign nuclear waste (see previous 2010) that is looking for a home. It is a huge unsolved problem with the people of Georgia and South Carolina at risk. The recently retired manager of the Savannah River Plant will be the manager of the Chalk River Nuclear Waste Storage facility*1.

     The proposed waste dump at Chalk River is currently being fought most effectively by the Kebaowek First Nation*2 which has with support from Ontarian environmental groups, the mayors of cities and towns along the Ottawa River and the Bloc Québécois, among others - taken the government in the form of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), to court. So far the court has ruled that the First Nation was not adequately consulted as required by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The plans were not careful enough of the environment and habitats of endangered species, but the ruling is being challenged by CNL.

     To understand the responsibility for this nuclear project requires some indoctrination into the world of corporate management, nuclear defence, weapons production and radiation exposure levels, areas where information shared with the public is not always reliable in the uneasy peace between conventional politics and a weapons-reliant nuclear industry. If you ask a generic artificial intelligence mechanism who owns the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Chalk River nuclear operation you'd learn: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)*3. If you ask who owns AECL you'll find it's a Canadian Crown Corporation. But who runs it. Who's responsible? Its management rights are privatised.

     Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada (NLPC) was selected by the AECL as the parent organization of control*4, a venture partnership to manage Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (and Chalk River). This partnership includes: BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) (headquartered in Lynchburg Virginia), Kinectrics Inc. (headquartered in Toronto), Amentum Environment & Energy Inc. (headquartered in Chantilly Virginia), Battelle Memorial Institute (headquartered in Columbus Ohio). BWXT of Lynchberg Virginia is a U.S. aerospace and heavy duty military defense corporation with Canadian subsidiaries and it recently purchased Kinectrics *5, the only Canadian based company sharing management of the proposed surface nuclear waste storage facility.

     The result of this is that when the accidents happen and the life span of Canadian millions is substantially shortened by radiation and a corrupted food chain, management of the foreseeable disasters will have been sold to the businessmen and nuclear professionals of another country who might have a different attitude toward the care of the Canadian people than Canada has. U.S. concern for the people of Gaza is not heartening. Current U.S. administration's carefulness with vessels in international waters results in executions without recourse to justice. So the life giving water safety of the Ottawa River is to be entrusted to employees serving a set of business ethics with a marked different perspective currently on the value of human life. Another economy, another country. The employees will be "bought," even when Canadian. BWXT's Commercial manager in charge of its CNL project has a Batchelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto. Are the Canadian people condemned to the profits to be made from a nuclear industry by politicians? The U.S. ownership of responsibility for the survival of Canadians may explain the U.S. President's carelessness about whether Canada wants to become a 51rst state or not.

Notes

1. Catherine Lévesque, "Critics are sounding the alarm on U.S. management of Canada's nuclear labs. Here's why," June 26, 2025, The National Post.

2. Natasha Bulowski, "Appeal of Ontario nuclear waste site ruling will test the limits of First Nations consent," Oct. 17, 2025, The Narwhal .

3. "Atomic Energy of Canada Limited ," Current Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

4. "Nuclear Laboratory Partners of Canada Selected as Preferred Bidder to Manage and Operate CNL," June 12, 2025, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.

5. "Kinectrics Part of Team Awarded CNL Management & Operation Contract from AECL," June 12, 2025, Kinectrics.

 

"Of Canadian Sovereignty and Nuclear Waste"
by John Bart Gerald
graphic by Julie Maas
First posted Night's Lantern. October 30, 2025.