Question in overview

The Overview states that the IAA applies only to major projects and to about ten designated projects per year. It therefore appears to me that the IAAC under section 16 will be able to disqualify any major project that it does not wish to study if it deems the project to not be in the interest of government and federal jurisdiction.

For example, deep geological repositories (DGR) for high level nuclear waste. It’s well known that DGRs have a high likelihood of failure within 100 years of operation, and much more so for the 1 million years it will take for this radioactive waste to become benign. Nuclear energy should never have started 75 years ago, but today we have major and costly conundrum that is eluding a solution in Canada and globally. The IAA must find a solution for Canada’s nuclear waste, and this must be done in such a way that the waste remains accessible at all times forever, both for safety concerns and for possible future energy solutions that don’t yet exist.

The Sustainable Energy Group is concerned that the operating regulations for the IAA will be weakened and that trust in federal environmental impact regulations will be diminished. We need to see proof that this will not occur.