Opponents of a proposed nuclear waste dump along Lake Huron are optimistic a new Canadian government will reject the plan.
The stunning victory of Justin Trudeau will have reverberations beyond Canada's borders after the Liberal Party leader emphatically put an end to a decade of rule by the most conservative leadership in the country's history.
With Trudeau's decisive victory on Monday, Canadian voters reclaimed their country's liberal identity, giving the new prime minister a commanding majority in parliament that will allow him to govern without relying on other parties.
That means change in Canadian policies on a broad spectrum of issues.
Opponents of Ontario Power Generation’s plans to build a nuclear storage waste facility less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron welcome the change in Ottawa. They hope the new Trudeau government will scuttle the planned dump.
“It is one of the most important issues of our time because this decision will affect the Great Lakes for the next 100,000 years,” says Beverly Fernandez, with Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump. “Burying radioactive nuclear waste beside the Great Lakes, the drinking water for 40 million people in two countries, defies common sense.”
Ontario Power Generation wants to bury approximately 200,000 cubic meters of low to medium level nuclear waste 680 meters – just under a half mile – below ground. The utility insists the rock formation in the area, less than a mile from Lake Huron, is geologically stable.
The outgoing Conservative government had planned to make a decision on the planned nuclear waste dump by early December. But that decision is now in the hands of the new Liberal government.
The planned nuclear waste dump has drawn strong opposition in Michigan, with numerous local governments, state, and federal lawmakers voicing their opposition.
