New Billionaire Jared Kushner Is Mired in Conflicts of Interest as “Peace Envoy”

Kushner’s current fundraising efforts with Gulf state regimes, through which he aims to personally profit, raise serious concerns over conflicts between his business interests with regional states and his diplomatic role as a top Trump administration negotiator.
Jared Kushner, like the rest of the Trump family, uses the White House for personal enrichment.
By Derek Seidman , Truthout, June 12, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/from-peace-envoy-to-billionaire-kushner-makes-a-killing-in-white-house-admin/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=8d7f421301-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_06_12_06_45_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-16ee3bf6a0-650192793
Kushner is now a billionaire,” proclaimed Forbes in September 2025 of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. While just over half of Kushner’s wealth — $560 million — comes from his family’s real estate empire, what’s catapulted Kushner into billionaire status is the growth of his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, formed in 2021.
“[T]hese days,” said Forbes, Kushner is “laser-focused on Affinity.”
Kushner is not an experienced investment manager. His key clients are Gulf state sovereign wealth funds — hugely wealthy state-owned coffers that invest revenue generated by fossil fuel sales — overseen by the same regimes with whom Kushner is now involved diplomatically as a U.S. “special envoy for peace.”
That Kushner personally profits from, and is currently trying to raise billions from, the same actors he’s negotiating with, raises code red-level alarms over potential conflicts of interest. Moreover, two of Trump’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, have been tied to a slew of business deals connected to companies that are benefitting handsomely from federal government contracts.
“The degree of shamelessness is unprecedented,” Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog group monitoring the U.S. executive branch, told Truthout. “The degree of unity among elected Republicans to not speak about the Trump progeny, and their corruption, is the worst conspiracy of silence in American political history.”
Affinity Partners
Jared Kushner founded Affinity Partners in 2021, and he is the firm’s sole owner. Forbes estimates Affinity was worth $215 million as of September 2025, up from $170 million in October 2024. Through Affinity, Kushner recruits wealthy clients and invests their money through funds that acquire stakes in different companies.
Affinity currently has $6.2 billion in assets under management. According to the Israeli financial paper Globes, Kushner earns “a commission of 1.25 percent on investors’ capital.” Forbes says that Affinity’s investors “pay about $60 million per year in fees.”
The New York Times also reports that Affinity has earned an estimated 25 percent rate of return on its investments since 2021. Private equity investment firms often get a double-digit percentage cut on client returns.
Affinity’s biggest clients are Gulf state sovereign wealth funds. According to The New York Times, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which invests the kingdom’s oil profits and is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is “already the largest and earliest investor in Affinity,” having invested $2 billion with the firm after Trump’s first term ended. As part of that investment deal, Saudi Arabia was also given “the first chance to invest during any subsequent attempts by Affinity to raise funds,” said The New York Times.
The sovereign wealth funds of both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar were also early investors in Affinity Partners, with the UAE investing over $200 million in Kushner’s firm.
“Most of Affinity’s investors came through connections Kushner made while serving in the White House,” wrote Forbes.
Kushner is currently trying to raise $5 billion or more in new funds for Affinity. As part of this effort, The New York Times reported in March 2026 that Affinity representatives had met with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and that the United Arab Emirates and Qatar “are also expected to be asked for more” as the fundraising efforts should “stretch on for the better part of this year,”
“Staggering Conflicts of Interest”
Kushner’s current fundraising efforts with Gulf state regimes, through which he aims to personally profit, raise serious concerns over conflicts between his business interests with regional states and his diplomatic role as a top Trump administration negotiator.
“There’s an enormous conflict of interest when you have somebody who had never been a money manager like this before, and who is all of a sudden building massive funds based off a handful of foreign investors with an interest in buttering up the Trump administration,” said Hauser.
Hauser said it’s “not unprecedented” for well-connected family members or friends of presidents to influence U.S. diplomacy. But, he adds, “it is very susceptible to abuse, and I think it’s being abused here,” and government reforms are needed in the wake of Kushner’s current “diplomatic exploits.”
The potential conflicts of interest have been highlighted by some members of congress. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) has opened an investigation into what he labels Kushner’s “foreign entanglements and staggering conflicts of interest.”
“From the standpoint of the American people, your decision to act in these two roles — one public for the government and one private for personal profit — creates a glaring and incurable conflict of interest,” Raskin wrote in a letter to Kushner.
Kushner’s diplomatic efforts have included helping to design and advance the Abraham Accords, which aims to normalize relations between Israel and key Gulf States; carrying out negotiations with Iran, whose retaliatory strikes have been aimed at nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE; and working on Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which several Gulf states, including top Affinity clients, have joined.
Kushner’s Portfolio Companies
Read more: New Billionaire Jared Kushner Is Mired in Conflicts of Interest as “Peace Envoy”Affinity Partners’ most significant deal has been its $55 billion acquisition in 2025, in partnership with Saudi Arabia and other investors, of the video game giant Electronic Arts, maker of popular franchises like Madden and Sims. The transaction, which has garnered protests from gamers and developers, would be the largest-ever private buyout of a publicly-traded company. It’s currently in its final stages of approval.
Under the deal’s terms, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — which already had a 10 percent stake in Electronic Arts — will own 93.4 of EA, while Affinity Partners will own 1.1 percent. For Saudi Arabia, the deal advances two separate but intertwined aims: diversifying its economy away from overreliance on oil revenue, and partnering with a member of the Trump family as the deal seeks regulatory approval from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, chaired by Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
Affinity Partners also invests in smaller AI and financial companies, including U.K. digital bank OakNorth, AI infrastructure firm Universal AGI, and the fintech start-up company Revolut. Forbes reports that Kushner recently launched a new San Francisco-based AI start-up with the prominent Israeli-born venture capitalist Elad Gil. The firm, Brain Co., also raised funds from Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman.
Raising more potential for conflicts with his diplomatic role, Kushner also has stakes in several Israeli companies, including $1.68 billion in Phoenix Financial, one of Israel’s leading insurance and financial companies. Affinity is Phoenix’s top shareholder and has seen a five-times return on its investment.
Affinity is also invested in the Israeli Shlomo Group, one of Israel’s largest holding groups with big investments in the auto sector.
Kushner, TikTok, and the Trump Web
Jared Kushner is also embedded in a wide web of business figures advancing the Trump agenda — which could be seen in the January 2026 deal that created a U.S. spinoff of TikTok.
Kushner’s Electronic Arts deal is co-led by Silver Lake, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm. As Truthout previously reported, Silver Lake is also a 15 percent stakeholder in the new U.S. TikTok. The firm’s co-CEO Egon Durban sits on the seven-member board of U.S. TikTok.
In 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that acquiring Electronic Arts was Durban’s “dream deal,” but that “the pieces began to fall into place” for the acquisition only after Durban “began spending time with Jared Kushner.”
Silver Lake also owns Endeavor, whose portfolio includes TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the mixed martial arts corporation that is chummy with Donald Trump.
Durban and Silver Lake are close business partners with Michael Dell, the megabillionaire chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies who is also part of the U.S. TikTok ownership group with Durban. Dell has cast himself as a Trump ally by donating $6.25 billion toward the president’s so-called “Trump Accounts” program, which creates investment accounts for U.S. children.
Billionaire Yuri Milner, another U.S. TikTok investor, previously invested $850,000 in a real estate company started by Kushner in 2015. Jon Winkelried, the billionaire CEO of TPG Global, a private equity firm represented on U.S. TikTok’s board, also previously served as a strategic adviser and partner for Thrive Capital, an investment firm overseen by Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh Kushner.
The Trump Sons
If Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, may be personally benefiting from his closeness to the president, so too might be two of the president’s own children.
Donald Trump Jr. is a partner with an investment firm called 1789 Capital, which he says is dedicated to “patriotic capitalism,” and which has seen its assets under management boom from $200 million to $3.5 billion over the past year.
1789 Capital has made investments in companies that have gone on to benefit from federal contracts. For example, the Trump administration helped secure a $620 million loan for Vulcan Elements, a rare earths firm, months after 1789 Capital acquired a stake. Other 1789 Capital portfolio companies that benefit from federal contracts include rocket propulsion start-up Firehawk Aerospace, quantum computing company PsiQuantum, and AI group Cerebras Systems, as well as SpaceX and Anduril. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have also been linked to other drone makers, including Unusual Machines and Powerus, that have secured federal contracts.
Trump Jr. told the Financial Times that he is “very involved in the strategic decisions regarding where to invest” the resources of 1789 Capital.
The Financial Times also reported that Eric Trump accompanied his father on his recent state visit to China at the same “a company linked to him and the US president’s family” — Alt5 Sigma, a Las Vegas-based financial technology company — “explores a deal” with Chinese chipmaker Nano Labs that U.S. lawmakers says is tied to the Chinese Community Party. Eric Trump is an “observer” on the board of Alt5 Sigma, while Zach Witkoff, the son of top Trump aide Steve Witkoff, chairs Alt5’s board.
The Financial Times also reports that a shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump is set to merge with a critical minerals group that last year secured up to $1.6 billion in U.S. government backing to mine tungsten in Kazakhstan. Now, that group is asking for $400 million more from the government.
Holding Politicians to Account
While Donald Trump may be struggling in the polls, his family, financially, is doing just fine.
Hauser told Truthout that much of Donald Trump’s “economic interest” is tied to “increasing the wealth of his kids,” including his son-in-law Kushner. “When they are engaged in these types of overseas actions, they are carrying Trump’s interests with them inherently,” said Hauser.
But, Hauser adds, the law treats adult children of presidents as wholly independent from their parents, allowing “relative impunity” for their intermixing of business transactions with diplomatic roles or close familial relations.
“The law is just not written to address this type of situation,” said Hauser.
But Hauser sees hope in past U.S. history, which he says has always experienced vicissitudes of political corruption and revulsion against corruption that propels reform through both legal avenues as well as social ostracization of bad actors.
“Political corruption cycles tend to be cyclical,” he said. “Hopefully this is [the] nadir, and we can all be angry enough and hold our politicians to account such that they start to clean this up, and we can switch from a vicious cycle of ever-increasing corruption to a virtuous cycle of greater integrity.”
Gaza Genocide, Inc.: The Permanent-Conflict Industry

Imran Khalid for Foreign Policy in Focus, 12 June 26 https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/12/gaza-genocide-inc-the-permanent-conflict-industry/
The international community’s approach to conflict resolution has undergone a profound and dangerous structural shift, moving away from the pursuit of political settlements toward the permanent administration of crisis. This transition is vividly apparent in Rafah, where the newly established National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) has begun overseeing a reconstruction process stripped of any path toward genuine sovereignty or political renewal. What is being built instead is a sprawling, technocratic bureaucracy designed to manage human suffering indefinitely, transforming a site of active geopolitical dispossession into a permanent administrative holding pattern.
The rollout of Phase Two of the Trump administration’s Comprehensive Gaza Plan—secured with a UN Security Council endorsement—exposes the nakedly corporate logic underpinning modern foreign policy. By placing a “Board of Peace” stacked with billionaire financiers and political hawks like Marco Rubio, Tony Blair, Jared Kushner, Ajay Banga, and Marc Rowan in charge of post-conflict governance, Western hegemony has effectively financialized geopolitical containment. The plan treats Gaza not as a nation deserving of self-determination but as a high-risk economic asset to be secured, stabilized, and folded into regional trade corridors while its population remains permanently disenfranchised.
This containment model carries severe consequences both for the occupied population and the broader global order. For Palestinians, it institutionalizes a bleak daily reality of endless aid lines and checkpoints under an international apparatus that has traded the promise of liberation for technocratic stabilization. Globally, this reveals a deeper systemic reality: the traditional assumption that regional conflicts are temporary shocks awaiting a diplomatic fix has completely collapsed.
For global political and economic elites, perpetual instability is no longer a failure to be corrected but a baseline structural condition around which modern global capitalism is choosing to organize itself.
A Shift in Logic
In the twentieth century, major conflicts were viewed as massive disruptions to globalization. In the twenty-first, globalization is rapidly adapting itself around endless disruption. Entire corporate, financial, and bureaucratic systems now operationalize instability as a baseline condition rather than a temporary shock.
Private-sector logistics firms are securing long-term contracts to manage continuous delivery corridors into high-risk zones. Maritime conglomerates are permanently adjusting pricing models and routing assets around Africa as a structural business reality. Digital and physical infrastructure protection has transitioned from an annual insurance check-box to a core operational expense that drives tech-sector hiring and venture capital investment.
Markets are internalizing this shift. Oil prices no longer spike the way they once did after escalations because commodity investors increasingly price in chronic, localized instability rather than assuming systemic collapse. Capital markets are no longer asking whether a crisis will end but whether it can remain geographically contained. That distinction changes everything for how corporate treasuries allocate capital.
Gaza and Ukraine
Gaza illustrates this vividly. The NCAG’s reconstruction mandate and the Board of Peace’s integration of Gaza into the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) show that crisis management itself has become a growth industry. Reconstruction is not about closure; it is about embedding instability into global supply chains.
This economic adaptation mirrors a deeper systemic fatigue within international governance. The post-Cold War era operated on the logic that major conflicts eventually reached closure, whether Bosnia after Dayton or Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement. Today, that logic is spent.
Instead of diplomacy aimed at structural architecture, modern institutions are becoming highly efficient at administering instability rather than ending it. The UN’s Resolution 2803 did not declare peace; it endorsed a framework for managing crisis indefinitely. The NCAG’s mandate is to restore services under conditions of volatility, not to deliver closure.
Ukraine offers a parallel. Western institutions have become adept at stabilizing financial flows, managing refugee integration, and sustaining military aid—but without a credible path to settlement. Sudan’s humanitarian corridors are similarly managed as permanent relief operations. Gaza’s plan institutionalizes this model: reconstruction without resolution, administration without settlement.
Normalization
The third transformation is occurring inside the human infrastructure of the modern workplace, driven by algorithmic fatigue and the workspace paradox. The digital age has fundamentally altered how societies, consumers, and employees process global trauma.
Previous generations experienced major conflicts sequentially. Today’s professional workforce experiences them simultaneously, continuously, and instantly. In any given hour, a professional’s algorithmic stream displays corporate Slack messages alongside real-time updates from Gaza, Ukraine, Taiwan, and climate disasters.
This continuous exposure has created a dangerous psychological paradox. The global workforce is more emotionally connected to macro-level crises than at any point in history, yet constant exposure is triggering widespread psychological numbness and professional exhaustion. Public and corporate outrage surges rapidly, then stabilizes into fatigue. For leaders, managing a workforce under the weight of this continuous cognitive load is a quiet crisis in itself.
The ultimate danger of the era of permanent crisis is that it becomes intellectually and socially normalized. Once corporate strategies and public expectations internalize the assumption that global disruption never truly ends, ambition contracts. Leaders stop pursuing long-term expansions because planning horizons narrow from years to weeks. Innovation takes a backseat to survival and containment.
History offers a stern warning: the late Roman Empire did not collapse because every frontier failed simultaneously. It declined because permanent emergencies became routine, and tactical crisis management slowly replaced strategic renewal.
The modern international order risks entering a similar phase. Gaza, Ukraine, and shipping vulnerabilities matter immensely for their immediate human and material costs, but they matter even more because they reveal the new template of global operations. Trump’s Gaza plan, with its NCAG, Board of Peace, and IMEC linkage, is not just a reconstruction blueprint. It is a case study in how global institutions now design for permanence of crisis rather than its resolution.
The challenge for the next generation of business leaders is not simply navigating the next disruption but learning how to build sustainable, human-centric enterprises when disruption is the baseline condition. The permanent crisis economy is here: industries are monetizing instability, institutions are administering it, and workforces are absorbing it.
Gaza’s reconstruction framework, endorsed by the UN and operationalized by Trump’s Board of Peace, crystallizes this reality. It shows that the world’s most powerful actors are no longer promising closure. They are promising management.
For commerce, governance, and society, the task is clear: to resist the temptation to normalize crisis as the only horizon. Otherwise, the machinery of global order will become a treadmill of containment, and the ambition for renewal will fade. The permanent crisis economy may be the present reality, but it must not become a permanent destiny.
The Entire Human Species Has Been Turned Into A Profit-Generating Machine
Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 12, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-entire-human-species-has-been?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=201685469&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The human species has essentially been transformed into a giant machine to generate profit for corporations.
Under capitalism, humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders.
That’s why everyone’s so unhappy. We’re not living with purpose. We’re not working together to build a better world and a better future, we’re just pulling levers to turn gears to make the arrow line go up on the graph in the conference room. It’s a hollow, pointless way for people to live.
It makes our whole culture vapid and soulless.
Music is made to be as profitable as possible, which means giving it the broadest possible appeal using formulaic song structure calculated to cause a chemical response in the largest number of human brains.
Movies are designed to draw the largest possible box office revenue at the lowest possible risk to studios and investors, often by just rehashing a movie that’s already proven successful in the past or by slapping together a story about an IP with pre-existing mass appeal.
Food is made to be fast and addictive rather than nourishing.
Healthy human connection has been commodified as social media intertwines with friendships and dating apps insert themselves into the development of romantic relationships.
Human sexuality is being warped and twisted as internet porn normalizes violence and degradation for the maximum number of clicks.
Attention and engagement have been monetized, creating an information ecosystem dominated by conflict and gossip designed to appeal to our baser instincts.
Advertisement is injected into every possible corner of our waking sensory experience, with any available space where the eye might rest or the ear might listen being flooded with psychological manipulation compelling us to consume. They’ll start running commercials in our dreams the instant they have the technology to do so.
You spend eight hours at the office working to generate corporate profits, then you come home and consume products to profit other corporations. You need your beer and snacks to unwind, your streaming services and social media to distract your mind from the stress of it all, your online clothing purchase to try to feel good about yourself, and your prescription drugs to get to sleep at night. People live their entire lives like this.
And that’s those of us who are lucky enough to be living in the global north. In the global south you get wage slavery and exploitation with far more toil, far less relaxation time, and no cheap products made by impoverished workers on other continents with which to comfort yourself.
All of humanity has been roped into this mess. And for what? To make the numbers in some bank accounts increase. To get some green arrows pointing upward on the stock exchange. To enable a few billionaires to buy islands and elections.
All while destroying the biosphere we all depend on for survival.
This, we are told, is the best possible system we could possibly be living under.
I personally do not believe this is true. I personally believe we can have better. Those who benefit from this current arrangement are going to assure us it’s impossible and do everything they can to stop us from changing it, but we do have the means to reclaim the wealth, dignity and happiness that they have stolen from us.
They built this whole machine on our backs. All we need to do is stand up.
We economists have done the maths: ‘growth’ is a doomed strategy – there is a better way

Our roadmap has been shaped by experts across the world, from UN agencies to grassroots movements. We call on political leaders at all levels to use it
Olivier De Schutter, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, Thomas Piketty, Kate Raworth and Jason Hickel, 10 June 26, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/10/economists-maths-growth-doomed-strategy-un-agencies-political-leaders
We live in an age of manufactured scarcity. In a world richer than ever before, roughly one 10th of the world’s population still lives in extreme destitution. Millions of people cannot afford enough food, proper housing or basic healthcare, while a tiny minority accumulates unprecedented wealth and power. At the same time, droughts, megafires, floods and heatwaves remind us that our economies are pushing the planet beyond its limits.
These are not separate crises. They are symptoms of an economic model that has reached the end of the road. Poverty and inequality are not accidents; they are predictable outcomes of policy choices: how we design tax systems, regulate labour markets, value care, structure public services and decide whose needs and whose voices matter. Crucially, if governments can manufacture poverty, they can also dismantle it.
For decades, the recipe was simple: grow the economy, and poverty would gradually disappear. But the promise that economic growth would “lift all boats” has not been kept. While national incomes expanded, wages stagnated, work became more precarious and public services were cut. At the top, fortunes ballooned; at the bottom, families turned to food banks. Growth has become decoupled from shared prosperity.
It has also become ecologically unsustainable. We are edging towards a “hothouse Earth”, where rising emissions and biodiversity loss are destabilising the conditions that support human life. Around 92% of excess global carbon emissions can be attributed to the global north, and the wealthiest 10% of individuals are responsible for nearly half of global emissions, while people in poverty are the first to face crop failures and rising food prices. An economic model that depends on endless expansion on a finite planet is not just unfair; it is dangerous.
Many low‑income countries still need growth to build roads, hospitals, schools, renewable energy and decent jobs. But the dominant path to growth – based on resource extraction, cheap and compliant labour, export dependence and deepening debt – has widened inequality and degraded the environment. The real question today is not whether growth continues, but what kind of economies we are building, who they serve and whether they allow everyone to live in dignity within planetary boundaries.
That is why we have come together to develop and support the “roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth”. The roadmap provides a range of alternatives on how to move beyond the narrow “grow-tax-transfer” approach that has shaped policy for decades. It is not a blueprint shaped by a handful of experts. It is the exact opposite: over 18 months, more than 400 people – UN agencies, national governments, academic experts, civil society organisations, trade unions, social and solidarity economy actors and grassroots movements, from the global north and south – worked to answer a simple question: how can we end poverty and reduce inequalities without treating GDP growth as the primary condition for progress? More than 350 signatories have put their names to the plan, including Jean Drèze, Pavlina Tcherneva, Tim Jackson, Bhumika Muchhala, Julia Steinberger, Ndongo Samba Sylla, Timothée Parrique.
We do not agree on every policy detail. But we are united in the conviction that our economies must be redesigned around the fulfilment of rights and collective wellbeing within planetary boundaries, rather than maximising output at any cost. Human rights here are not an afterthought; they are the organising principle for how we measure progress, set priorities and resolve trade‑offs. Social protection and public services are essential, but they cannot indefinitely compensate for economies that by design generate poverty wages, insecure jobs and unaffordable housing.
We need to change the rules upstream. That means, for instance, decent work and employment guarantees, living wages and fair remuneration, stronger unions and workplace democracy, tackling discrimination and valuing the paid and unpaid care work on which our societies depend. It means investing in children, housing, health, education and transport through universal public provisioning. It means public control of strategic assets, credit guidance to steer investment towards social and ecological priorities, and support for the development of the social and solidarity economy.
Implementing this vision means changing the rules of the global economy. Today, governments in the global south are chided for not doing enough to tackle poverty, while being squeezed by unilateral sanctions, restrictive trade agreements, unequal exchange and debt burdens rooted in centuries of colonial dispossession. About 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt servicing than on healthcare or education. Meanwhile, global supply chains enable a vast net transfer of labour and resources from south to north. International solidarity is therefore a legal and moral obligation rooted in the historical reality that many rich countries built their wealth by impoverishing the south, through patterns of extraction that continue today in new forms. A just transition beyond growth must include debt justice, increased south-south cooperation, reparative climate finance and support for universal social protection floors, rooted in the principles of non-domination and self-determination so that countries can chart their own sovereign economic futures.
Equally crucial is who gets to shape this transition. All too often, policies affecting people in poverty are designed without them – and sometimes against them. When welfare systems are built around suspicion, sanctions and humiliating conditions, they deepen stigma and deter people from claiming their entitlements. Those who live in poverty know better than anyone how systems can fail in practice. Their expertise must guide the design, implementation and monitoring of anti‑poverty strategies, from local councils to parliaments and international forums.
We are not starting from zero. Around the world, Indigenous struggles, feminist organising, trade unions and climate justice movements are defending and building alternative futures rooted in collective care and territorial rights. New coalitions of states are advancing new visions of global economic governance, and governments are experimenting with rights‑based anti‑poverty strategies, citizens’ assemblies and community wealth building. The UN and many partners are exploring “beyond GDP” indicators and new institutions, such as an international panel on inequality, to help chart this shift.
Our roadmap builds on these efforts, connects them and pushes them further. We offer it now as a common reference point for those who refuse to accept that poverty and ecological breakdown are the price to pay for how we currently define economic “success”. Governments and multilateral institutions have a choice: double down on a failing growth-first model or commit to eradicating poverty by transforming the economic rules that produce it.
Poverty is manufactured. That is the bad news – and the good news. What has been manufactured can be dismantled and replaced. We are putting concrete options on the table, all backed by detailed policy profiles that spell out evidence, implementation steps and real‑world examples. We call on political leaders at all levels to use them, to listen to those most affected, and to treat the end of poverty, the reduction of inequalities and the effective realisation of human rights as the measure by which economic policy should be judged.
- Olivier De Schutter is the chair of New Economies for Eradicating Poverty; Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics; Jayati Ghosh is professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst; Thomas Piketty is professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics; Kate Raworth is an economist at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute; JJason Hickel is a political economist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona
Campaigners demand answers over Sizewell C costs and completion date

It comes one year after £14bn Government backing for the nuclear power plant
Author: Jasmine Oak, 10th Jun 2026
Anti-nuclear campaigners are calling on the Government to release more information about the future of Sizewell C, arguing that key questions about the project’s costs and completion date remain unanswered a year after ministers committed £14.2 billion to the Suffolk development.
Campaign group Stop Sizewell C has published a new report to mark the first anniversary of the Government’s investment in the power station, claiming there is still insufficient transparency around how much the project will ultimately cost and when it will begin generating electricity.
The group is urging ministers to publish what it describes as an unredacted Full Business Case and a detailed delivery plan, arguing that both local communities and bill payers deserve greater clarity.
What questions they want answered
Alison Downes, founder of Stop Sizewell C, said the most significant unanswered question was when the power station would be completed.
“It’s been a year since the government committed £14 billion pounds to Sizewell C and that paved the way for a final investment decision and there’s still a lot we don’t know,” she said.
“The biggest single question is when Sizewell C will be finished and the government seems absolutely determined to keep this a secret.
“Local people need to know how long this nightmare is going to go on for. The British public needs to know how long they have to pay for it until they get any electricity.”
The Government and Sizewell C have previously said the project is expected to begin generating electricity in the mid-2030s. However, Ms Downes questioned whether that timeline remained realistic, citing references contained within reports examining the project.
The campaign group is also seeking greater transparency over the financial implications of the development.
Under the Regulated Asset Base funding model, consumers contribute towards the cost of constructing the power station before it begins generating electricity.
Ms Downes said uncertainty remained over the eventual impact on household energy bills.
“The reality is we don’t know what the impact of Sizewell C on energy bills is going to be because we don’t know what it ultimately will cost,” she said.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be paying for it before it’s even generating any electricity.”
They’re seeking transparency
The report also calls on ministers to publish further project documentation, including a full business case and delivery strategy.
“The government needs to publish the unredacted Sizewell C full business case so we can all see the information withheld when only a summary was published last year,” Ms Downes said.
“We also need to see a strategy and delivery plan. It needs to be transparent about the costs and schedule in a way that’s easy for people to understand.”
The campaign group argues ministers should be prepared to reconsider the project if costs or delays escalate significantly.
“The Secretary of State has the power to cancel Sizewell C under certain circumstances and we want more assurances that the government is actually prepared to do this,” Ms Downes said.
“It would be completely immoral to force the public to carry on paying for something that spiralled out of control.”
Sizewell C is expected to provide enough low-carbon electricity to power around six million homes and is one of the Government’s flagship infrastructure projects aimed at improving the UK’s energy security and reducing carbon emissions.
Ministers have consistently argued that Sizewell C will play a vital role in the UK’s future energy mix. The Government says the power station will help strengthen energy security, reduce exposure to volatile international gas markets and provide enough low-carbon electricity to power around six million homes for decades to come…………………………………….. https://www.hellorayo.co.uk/hits-radio/suffolk/news/campaigners-demand-answers-over-sizewell-c-costs-and-completion-date
Are the Sizewell C financing arrangements a model for other European countries?

Steve Thomas, Presentation to AT OM Day, May 22, 2026, TUB, Berlin
Government claimed Sizewell RAB could be funded by
institutional investors, mostly UK-based.
Government took 49.5%,
institutional investors 23%, UK private investors 15%/. Government talked
about seeking a balance of risk & reward between investors & consumers, but
risk is with consumers/taxpayers, rewards are with investor. The government
strategy appears to have been to offer whatever terms were needed with no
regard for cost & risk to the public. Still, investors will only finance
half the cost. The model will not be used again so the huge effort
completing the Sizewell deal was wasted
TUB Berlin 22nd May 2026, https://www.static.tu.berlin/fileadmin/www/10002415/WIP_Vortraege_PDF/veranstaltung_atom_day_2026/EB414a_Fr_10-15_Thomas_Stephen.pdf
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) commits £20M to UKI2S fund for fusion innovation

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has contributed a further £20
million to the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) to back UK-based
spinouts and early-stage companies. UKI2S is a government-backed seed fund
managed by Future Planet Capital that invests in and grows early-stage deep
tech companies emerging from UK research, helping turn science into
commercially viable businesses.
The investment forms part of a wider
£33.25 million funding increase across three UKI2S sub-funds (Space,
Defence and Fusion), taking the fund’s total capacity to £150 million.
The capital includes £9.25 million from the UK Space Agency, £4 million
from the Ministry of Defence and £20 million from UKAEA. The cumulative
investment from UKAEA in the UKI2S fund is £28 million.
UKAEA 10th June 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukaea-commits-20m-to-uki2s-fund-for-fusion-innovation
Sizewell C to move work offsite ‘as much as possible’ amid skills crisis
The National Audit Office (NAO) last month questioned whether investors in the Sizewell C nuclear power station were sufficiently incentivised to keep construction costs under control.
The public spending watchdog said it was “not clear” whether the project’s funding structure would motivate backers to keep costs down below the project’s “higher regulatory threshold” of £47.7bn.
09 Jun 2026 By Greg Pitcher, https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/sizewell-c-to-move-work-offsite-as-much-as-possible-amid-skills-crisis-09-06-2026/
Sizewell C chief executive Nigel Cann has outlined plans to maximise offsite working on the £38bn nuclear project amid a looming construction skills shortage.
He told MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week that productivity was a key risk to the programme and budget of the Suffolk scheme.
Sizewell C, which is backed by Hinkley Point C developer EDF as well as the UK Government and other investors, reached financial close last year.
Asked by PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown whether he was confident the Suffolk nuclear plant would be delivered on time and at its lower ‘regulatory cost’ of £40.5bn, Cann replied: “Absolutely.”
But he admitted there was work to do to achieve this.
“You need to manage your risk as a long project; it’s over 10 years,” Cann told the committee. “So we absolutely need to focus.”
He said his first challenge was to get as much equipment as possible built and stored in the company’s 92,900 square metre warehouse ready for the start of main construction. Enabling works including excavation and infrastructure tasks had to be carried out efficiently as well, he added.
“All that [risk] will be retired by 2029 and then we look forward,” said Cann. “It’s [then] about really managing productivity. The UK currently has got a challenge around making sure productivity rates are high.
“It’s about working with all the bodies concerned, including trade unions, including the workforce, making sure we’ve got enough trained people to do the work, and really optimising that productivity.
“Our big challenge between now and [the start of main construction] to make that happen is to modulise as much as possible. So we want to take as much welding off site, we want to take as much stuff into factories as we can, so that when we get to the construction on site, it’s absolutely optimised.”
The first-ever Annual Skills Report 2026 from Skills England this month predicted a sharp increase in labour demand alongside an exodus of existing workers from the construction industry, warning that a million more people were needed over the next decade to meet UK infrastructure commitments.
Cann said all big infrastructure projects contained uncertainty.
But he added: “If I go back to what are the cornerstones that make a project successful, [they are] stable design at the beginning; a very good bill of quantities; a supply chain [that] has done it before, in contract – we plan to have all our equipment contracts signed up by the end of next year. All that gives you confidence that you can deliver a project on time, on budget.”
The National Audit Office (NAO) last month questioned whether investors in the Sizewell C nuclear power station were sufficiently incentivised to keep construction costs under control.
The public spending watchdog said it was “not clear” whether the project’s funding structure would motivate backers to keep costs down below the project’s “higher regulatory threshold” of £47.7bn.
Jonathan Brearley, permanent secretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, told the PAC this week: “If we’d gone for a contract for difference, and purely private finance, we think this wouldn’t deliver either the best value for customers or indeed be affordable for customers.
“And we’ve learned lessons from High Speed 2 (HS2). We are not replicating HS2. We are not putting in a fixed price because of the cost that’s involved. We have created a regulatory system that balances those risks.
“I’m not sitting here saying there is no risk… but I think we’ve put a structure in place that best allows us to manage those risks.”
Rolls-Royce strikes nuclear deal with Japan, likely to be tax-payer funded

potential support that could eventually include
taxpayer-backed loans, debt financing or direct investments from the
National Wealth Fund.
Sir Keir Starmer and Sanae Takaichi set to sign agreement to develop advanced modular reactors
Matt Oliver, Industry Editor
Britain will join forces with Japan to build mini nuclear reactors capable
of powering factories, data centres and military bases. Sanae Takaichi,
Japan’s prime minister, and Sir Keir Starmer will sign an agreement at a
ceremony in Downing Street on Sunday, as part of a push to strengthen
energy cooperation between Tokyo and London.
The tie-up will lead to
British engineering giant Rolls-Royce working with the National Nuclear
Laboratory and its Japanese counterpart to develop advanced modular
reactors (AMRs) and the fuel needed to power them, The Telegraph can
disclose.
Japan has been testing a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor for
decades, but the technology remains unproven commercially. Under the
partnership, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency will share its extensive safety
data with Rolls-Royce to help the company build a demonstrator AMR in the
UK by the mid-2030s.
Rolls is understood to have held discussions with the
Government about potential support that could eventually include
taxpayer-backed loans, debt financing or direct investments from the
National Wealth Fund.
Under the agreement, Rolls-Royce, the UK and Japanese
national laboratories have also agreed to explore options for supplying the
novel kind of fuel the AMRs will use. Known as tri-structural isotropic
particle fuel (TRISO), it is seen by scientists as inherently safer than
more conventional nuclear fuel because it can be left to cool on its own.
TRISO fuel is made by taking poppy seed-sized pieces of uranium and
wrapping them in layers of ceramic material that are almost as tough as
diamond. These pellets are then compacted into hexagonal blocks or billiard
ball-sized “pebbles”, which can be loaded into a nuclear reactor. The
Government has already announced a £300m programme with Urenco, a nuclear
fuel company, to build a UK enrichment facility capable of providing the
uranium needed to make TRISO pellets.
Telegraph 14th June 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/14/rolls-royce-strikes-nuclear-deal-with-japan/
Planned strikes suspended at nuclear site
Planned strike action at a nuclear site has been suspended, union
officials have confirmed. About 2,000 construction workers employed by
contractors to work at Sellafield, in Cumbria, were set to down tools
between 15 and 21 June because of a dispute over pay. The workers argued
they should receive “a site-specific allowance due to the specialist skills
needed to work at a nuclear site and the hazardous nature of that site”.
Ryan Armstrong, regional officer at the union Unite, said industrial action
had been suspended as an “act of goodwill” to allow “meaningful talks” to
take place between the union and employers.
BBC 11th June 2026
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70y88lzel7o
Like Midas, our rulers want to monetise everything they touch – and kill it

War and profit are intimately tied together. The billionaires cannot secure their profits without war, or the threat of it – whether it is against workers at home or against other nations abroad.
War and profit are intimately tied together. The billionaires cannot secure their profits without war, or the threat of it – whether against workers at home or against other nations abroad
Jonathan Cook, Jun 10, 2026
I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the wave of excitement it unleashed. With the Soviet Union consigned to the history books, the world was going to become a better, safer place.
Liberals crowed that the West’s superior, democratic values had won out. Intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama wrote about the “end of history”: the triumph of free-market capitalism and a resolution of ideological struggle.
Nearly half a century on, the celebratory mood of that time looks not just misplaced but positively deluded.
The end of the Cold War brought not a peace dividend. Rather, it unleashed a surfeit of greed and hubris.
With the fear of mutually assured destruction behind it, the United States unveiled a new doctrine: “full-spectrum global dominance”, militarily and economically.
Fukayama’s vision of a world rallying to capitalism’s side ignored the fact that capitalism isn’t just a neutral, disinterested idea that everyone can subscribe to on equal terms.
It has a physical form too. Giant corporations that seek monopolistic control over other countries’ resources. And a gargantuan war machine headquartered in the US, but with 800 bases around the globe, that is ready to crush those who stand in the way of ever-greater wealth accumulation by a tiny elite of billionaires.
There could be no end of history because capitalism’s billionaire stewards are never satiated. They are driven to constantly entrench and expand their control, to amass more wealth, to buy more influence in our pretend-democracies, to be more ruthless against anyone or anything that threatens their dominance.
Fukayama forgot that capitalism isn’t socialism. It doesn’t seek the best for everyone. It doesn’t want to share the wealth. It doesn’t prioritise dignity over profit. Its lifeblood is exploitation – of individuals and of entire peoples.
Fukuyama forgot that capitalism without constraints would produce resistance.
War and profit
War and profit are intimately tied together. The billionaires cannot secure their profits without war, or the threat of it – whether it is against workers at home or against other nations abroad.
The “end of history” has brought not a unity of interests, and end to struggle, but ever greater polarisation between the haves and have-nots, between powerful nations and weak ones.
War drums sound ever more loudly across the globe. Ask Venezuelans, Cubans, Greenlanders, Ukrainians, Russians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians how the “end of history” is working out for them.
Ask Europeans and Americans too, now permanently mired in the politics of austerity. Ever more workers have been forced into the gig economy, with zero-hours contracts. And that is before an AI “revolution” makes swathes of jobs redundant.
The ever-growing arrogance of the Epstein class, however, is catching up with it. A mood of unrest is beginning to find its voice, recognising that we are already deep in a class war.
Meanwhile, Iran – by refusing to submit to US and Israeli aggression, and in realising its power to throttle global oil supplies – has shown that full-spectrum dominance was never as complete as the “masters of the universe” assumed. It has an Achilles’ heel, after all.
The truth is we should all have been terrified by the idea that our leaders might assume and behave as if history had come to an end.
In practice, it could mean only an end to constraints on capitalism – an end to any humanising limits on its reach, on its ambitions, on its cruelty.
Like King Midas, the Epstein class expected to monetise everything it touched. And like King Midas, hubris will be its downfall.
Limits of power
There are constraints, both immediate and long term, that even the billionaires cannot overcome…………………………. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/like-midas-our-rulers-want-to-monetise
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) defends Sizewell C funding which puts risk on taxpayer.

Representatives of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
have defended the government’s funding model for Sizewell C, which places
risk on taxpayers rather than private investors.
Under the agreed final
investment decision (FID), private investors won’t have to pump more
equity into the nuclear project even if construction costs spiral.
At an oral evidence session of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday (8
June), DESNZ civil servants were grilled about the findings of a recently
published report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the delivery of
the 3.2GW nuclear plant, which concluded that private investors are reaping
“high” rewards from the project.
Utility Week 8th June 2026,
https://utilityweek.co.uk/desnz-defends-sizewell-c-funding-which-puts-risk-on-taxpayer/
Screwed again: small investors to bail out billionaires from SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic

In the past, companies had to wait, and have a track record of revenues and profits.
But that rule is gone. Now, a newly public company can qualify, simply based on size—how big it is.
This is work the Wall Street Journal is supposed to be doing. That’s what the Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be asking questions about. Instead it’s left to “Where’s your Ed at?” and a handful of podcasts who are showing the world that the investment thesis for the entire American AI industry is blowing up. Costs are rising, not falling.
Inside China / Business, Kevin Walmsley, Jun 07, 2026
SpaceX will soon go public, in an offering that will value the company at over a trillion dollars.
Anthropic and OpenAI are Artificial Intelligence companies, who also plan IPO’s for later in the year.
Recent changes to indexing rules will compel massive share buys into these companies by retirement and pension plans, and by passive ETF’s and mutual funds.
In the past, new companies were required to wait until insiders sold most of the shares after the lockup periods before being added to investment indices. Companies also needed to show a strong history of growth and sound financial practices.
The heads-up on this story comes from one of our favorite Substacks, Gold and Geopolitics. Our concern is that the public, normal people, are at least unaware, and maybe even indifferent, to how really screwed they are at the highest level, and by people at the highest level. It’s not the kind of story that is felt tangibly, at least not at first, like a big spike in gas or food prices. And it’s also difficult to follow, and that’s exactly what the architects of our financial and political system are counting on.
It involves the qualification requirements for a new company to be included in the NASDAQ-100. The regulators changed those rules, so that new public companies can be part of the index. In the past, companies had to wait, and have a track record of revenues and profits. Because trillions of dollars’ worth of pension investments—which is money invested on behalf of workers, millions of private retirement plans, plus exchange-traded funds and other mutual funds, are invested in those indices. And they do so, assuming that the top 100 tech companies, in this case, are well-managed and profitable businesses.
But that rule is gone. Now, a newly public company can qualify, simply based on size—how big it is. And they changed the definition of “public”. Companies can qualify as a megacap public company simply by being large at the time of its IPO, then limiting how many shares they sell to the public. The index now accepts a weighting multiplier. That is what “small float” means—insiders of the company still own almost all of shares, and so completely control the company, even though it’s “public”.
They also threw out the rule for four consecutive quarters—one full year—of profits.
With these rule changes, the guardrails are down and regular Americans will be forced to buy shares of bad companies, that don’t make money.
The NASDAQ, in this case, gets big fees from the Initial Public Offerings of companies that want to avoid the rules that used to govern the industry, and protect small investors, somewhat, and SpaceX, in this case, will have tens of millions of passive investors buying their shares. That massive, passive buying will put a floor under the stock price no matter what happens, at the same time that insiders are allowed to dump their stock. Insiders and early investors are restricted from selling their shares during the IPO; they must wait to do so, until later.
That was previously a major risk to company insiders, and early investors: if the IPO price is set too high, or if the company does poorly after the IPO, their shares will be worth far less than they had hoped, just as they and all the other insiders are selling. But with these rule changes, passive investors will be buying shares, every single month, because they’re buying the index.
This is the source document. Paragraph 2 explains the new “fast entry” rules for new companies that list on the NASDAQ exchange. If the company’s market cap is in the top 40 of companies already there, it’s a Fast Entry addition, and will be put into the index after 15 trading days. So 15 days after the IPO, SpaceX will go into the index. The company will be exempt from “seasoning and liquidity requirements”—seasoning is how much experience the company has, earning money, and liquidity is how much money it has in the bank. Exempt………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
This is work the Wall Street Journal is supposed to be doing. That’s what the Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be asking questions about. Instead it’s left to “Where’s your Ed at?” and a handful of podcasts who are showing the world that the investment thesis for the entire American AI industry is blowing up. Costs are rising, not falling. AI data centers today are budgeted to cost $50 billion per gigawatt to build—and they’re not getting built anyway. Soon they’ll cost $80 to $100 billion per.
And the costs are rising just as companies who use the AI are realizing they’re not getting their money’s worth. Uber is a client of Anthropic, and has already spent its entire 2026 budget. Will they load up on some more tokens, to get through the rest of the year? Doubt it—it was a “head exploding moment” to learn how much Uber spent on tokens, which did NOT result in useful consumer features.
Alibaba is a Chinese company, and their Qwen large language model is the world’s most popular AI tool for business owners outside the United States. Airbnb tried to use ChatGPT to design a new reservation feature on their app, and even though the CEO of Airbnb is good friends with Sam Altman at OpenAI, his company switched over to Qwen instead. It works faster and costs less.
And that is catching on. Other companies are quietly making the switch to Chinese large-language models because they cost far less, and they’re open source and easier for their teams to use in their companies. The performance of Chinese models is similar to Silicon Valley’s best products, and are easier to use, cost less, and are more efficient. Companies are enterprise users—they pay for tokens, and executives lose their jobs if other executives heads blow up when they see their AI bill and ask what they’re getting for it. Companies are looking for alternatives to OpenAI and Anthropic, and signing up for DeepSeek instead. That also means that data is not going through US data centers, it’s coming to China instead, where electricity also happens to cost a lot less.
That could be the biggest challenge of all. For active investors – not the passive ones — business models matter. Revenues and profits – they matter. And the cost of compute is what is driving these corporate users of AI. They pay for the AI. Their engineering teams use it, every day, to develop new tools and applications, and they’re switching over to Chinese LLM’s.
Anthropic and OpenAI are fundamentally bad companies, with bad valuations, and produce financial reports that not even their own top executives trust. Their customers are moving away. And that used to mean that the insiders cannot cash out and make billions of dollars. They might even go to jail. But that was before they changed the rules, and so they’ll make you buy them instead.
Be Good.
Resources and links:……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/screwed-again-small-investors-to?publication_id=3320368&post_id=200908108&isFreemail=true&r=3alev&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Industrial dispute on Hinkley C site sees large police presence
A LARGE early morning police presence was needed at Hinkley Point C as
tempers flared while hundreds of workers were locked out of the site during
unofficial industrial action. The dispute arose after claims a dangerous
crane lift on the nuclear power station construction site has put workers
at risk. MEH Alliance workers, who are delivering Hinkley C’s mechanical,
electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning installations,
staged protest sit-downs in canteens. The site’s management then withdrew
access rights for the workers ‘to avoid any further disruption, limit
impacts to other HPC team members, and allow time for discussions’.
West Somerset Free Press 6th June 2026, https://www.wsfp.co.uk/news/industrial-dispute-on-hinkley-c-site-sees-large-police-presence-914669
Expert Warns of ‘Rubber Stamp’ Approvals as Ontario Expands Nuclear Spending

the changes effectively shift final authority from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to cabinet if concerns arise during assessment. It also shifts accountability if those decisions eventually go wrong—although the elected officials involved would likely be out of office by the time the full impacts were known.
the budget “goes on at some length about how wonderful [nuclear projects] are in terms of their economic contributions, but never actually talks about costs.”
the combination of the proposed new builds, the SMR pilots, and refurbishments will push capital expenditures “north of $400 billion”.
June 3, 2026, Nathaniel Crouch, https://www.theenergymix.com/expert-warns-of-rubber-stamp-approvals-as-ontario-expands-nuclear-spending/?utm_source=The+Energy+Mix&utm_campaign=7f479c951f-TEM_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc146fb5ca-7f479c951f-510028305
Federal impact assessment reviews for two Ontario nuclear projects risk serving as little more than procedural approvals, a Toronto environmental studies professor says, as they move through the process without first identifying the reactor types to be built.
Ontario’s Wesleyville Project in Port Hope has several reactor technologies under consideration, and the Bruce C expansion near Kincardine has not yet selected a technology, either. Both are undergoing federal impact assessment.
Mark Winfield, a professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, told The Energy Mix he is also concerned that proposed federal approval reforms, combined with Bill C-5 passed last summer, and the newly announced National Electricity Strategy, could lead to what he called “the explicit politicization of decision-making on nuclear projects.” Where “once projects are designated as being in the national interest,” he said, “they will be approved regardless of what the technical reviews find.”
That would be “a very dangerous situation when dealing with what will be first-of-kind reactors in Canada, or in some cases globally,” he added.
Winfield said the changes effectively shift final authority from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to cabinet if concerns arise during assessment. It also shifts accountability if those decisions eventually go wrong—although the elected officials involved would likely be out of office by the time the full impacts were known.
“The implication of going to cabinet is that the regulator’s concerns could be overridden for political or economic reasons,” he said, recalling Harper government’s 2008 decision to fire the CNSC chair after the rejection of the MAPLE reactors at Chalk River.
Winfield said Canada’s new electricity strategy seemed to “aggressively skate over” the cost implications of its nuclear heavy focus, as nuclear energy continues to be subject to enormous capital costs and construction delays.
“Essentially the federal strategy seems to be following Ontario’s lead—a heavy emphasis on gas and nuclear, and mostly ignoring the global movement in the direction of renewables.”
Ontario, Ratepayers Confront Growing Nuclear Costs
Critics have warned that Ontario’s nuclear expansion strategy could carry major long-term financial consequences.
In May, the Ontario government announced a $300-million cost-sharing agreement with Bruce Power to advance early planning for the expansion of the Bruce C nuclear complex, a project the province said would support 18,900 jobs and help make Ontario home to the largest nuclear generating facility in the world.
The announcement marked one of the clearest signals yet that Premier Doug Ford’s government sees large-scale nuclear expansion as the backbone of Ontario’s future electricity system. It also landed amid criticism that the province is shifting billions in electricity costs onto taxpayers, obscuring the long-term price of nuclear refurbishments, new reactors, and small modular nuclear projects.
Ontario’s 2026 budget led the province into a $13.8-billion deficit, with energy expenditures— and nuclear energy in particular—central to the shortfall. The government’s budget documents flagged large “amounts for electricity cost relief” and related line items, but stopped short of detailing long-term capital costs. That omission drew sharp criticism from electricity system experts.
Winfield said the budget “goes on at some length about how wonderful [nuclear projects] are in terms of their economic contributions, but never actually talks about costs.” Using figures the province provided for electricity supports, Winfield calculated that electricity-related spending accounted for roughly half the deficit—about $6.9 billion on the books—but said it would be difficult to figure out exactly how much of that line item in the budget is nuclear related because the figures are “deliberately opaque.”
Environmental Defence Canada Programs Director Keith Brooks too linked the deficit to rising nuclear and legacy refurbishment costs, as well as growing use of gas power plants to meet growing demand while the nuclear plants are being brought online.
29% Rate Hike
Last November, Ontario raised its basic electricity rate by 29% and simultaneously expanded rebate programs, which the government framed as short-term relief and a change in cost allocations. Both Winfield and Brooks said those measures masked the underlying driver: rising costs tied to refurbished and new nuclear plants. “What they seem to be doing is setting a precedent—allowing the costs for these projects to be charged to ratepayers before they’re built,” Winfield said, adding that the combination of the proposed new builds, the SMR pilots, and refurbishments will push capital expenditures “north of $400 billion”.
the combination of the proposed new builds, the SMR pilots, and refurbishments will push capital expenditures “north of $400 billion”.
-
Archives
- July 2026 (221)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (375)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS



