Secret Ontario meetings on nuclear waste plan broke the law

Closed-door nuclear meetings broke the law in Bruce County The Star.com 7 Aug 14 Closed-door meetings to talk about a proposed nuclear waste site near Kincardine broke the Municipal Act, says an official investigator By: John Spears Business reporter,

Bruce County council violated the Municipal Act by holding a string of closed-door meetings to talk about a proposed nuclear waste site near Kincardine, an official investigator says……… it’s not certain what was said in the sessions held from 2009 to 2012, because no official minutes were taken.

Unofficial notes were taken at eight sessions, but there appears to be no record for as many as nine others.

Nor was public notice given that the meetings were being held.

The investigator’s report was commissioned by the county after a complaint by citizens’ groups.

The complaint arose over meetings of a body called the Community Consultation Advisory Group. It was made up of all the mayors in Bruce County, including the county warden.

The group was formed by Ontario Power Generation to talk about OPG’s plans for a low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste site near Kincardine.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization — which is seeking a place to bury high-level nuclear waste — was also part of the sessions. Some were attended by members of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Because the group included every mayor in Bruce County, Amberley Gavel said there was in effect a quorum of county council members at every meeting of the advisory group.

And since the nuclear waste issue had been a subject discussed at county council, the advisory group sessions were in effect council meetings, the report concludes.

The Municipal Act generally requires council meetings to be public. None of the permitted exceptions applied in this case. “Since there was no notice of these Council meetings given to the public in accordance with the County’s Procedure By-Law; no Clerk or designate was present to take minutes, nor were any taken; and the public was unaware of and in no case attended any of these meetings; nor was there any resolution to close them, they were clearly in contravention of the open meetings requirements of the Act,” the report concludes………

Former Brockton mayor Charlie Bagnato said he didn’t fully realize the meetings were closed to the public when he attended the sessions.

“When you get elected, you get a list of all the different committees there and you appoint people to different committees,” he said. “The thing was driven by OPG. I guess we just kind of kowtowed to whatever they had done in the past.”

But some residents of the area have said the closed meetings show the current process of choosing a nuclear waste is fatally flawed.

The task of evaluating the location of the proposed low- and intermediate-level waste site is in now in the hands of a federal panel.

Rod McLeod, a lawyer and former president of the Southampton Residents Association, argued in a submission to the panel when the secret meetings first came to light that the panel should ultimately abort its current process.

Both the nuclear regulators and the municipalities showed that they aren’t willing to participate fairly and transparently, he argued. http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/08/07/closeddoor_nuclear_meetings_broke_the_law_in_bruce_county.html

August 8, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties

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