I strongly support those…

I strongly support those that argue for an Emergency Response/Management Plan that will address a Fukushima equivalent disaster that could impact Ontarian's either due to a failure of our Nuclear plants or plants in the US.

As a professional trained in Business Continuity Planning and Emergency Management I understand that to address a Fukushima like disaster scenario would be very expensive. Pretending that such an accident could not happen, failing to assess the risk to drinking water, failing to set reasonable evacuation zones and failure to plan for, at the very least, a strategy for the long term housing of evacuees is irresponsible. The cloak of secrecy around this subject is contrary to best practices and suggests that the citizens of this province (not to mention those a short distance away in the US) are at significant risk. Playing politics and/or allowing Managers to manipulate budgets etc in order to 'climb the ladder' when we are talking about such a high stakes scenario is incredibly short sighted and again, simply irresponsible. The fact that none of you are ever going to be held personally responsible for your failures to fulfill your mandate in protecting the citizens of Ontario from death, physical/financial and mental injury does not justify the risks you are imposing on literally millions of people, let alone the environment.

If the Ontario Government feels the costs of protecting citizens, to the level they expect, is too high then why continue using Nuclear reactors in Ontario? While some would argue that the likelihood of a disaster is very small the impact of a Fukushima disaster in Ontario would be devastating. It is literally a time bomb hanging around all our necks. Experts around the world expect a serious nuclear accident every 10 years and with our reactors at or near the end of their useful life it means the risks of failure and disaster are increasing. Add to the mix very sophisticated enemies who may figure out a way to take advantage of this enormous vulnerability and we have the potential for suffering on a level not seen since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is easy to understand why we chose Nuclear power, when our reactors were first built, but in light of currently available options there is no sane reason to continue sinking enormous sums of money into centralized power generation let alone Nuclear power generation, which is so extraordinarily dangerous. Distributed power generation makes our grid more resilient, less expensive to maintain, creates more jobs which are more reasonable in terms of hourly wages than those related to Nuclear energy, no risk of mass deaths and injury from green sources of energy, significantly reduced threat of serious harm caused by intentional sabotage, allows Ontario to at the least keep up with the rest of the world in terms of the transition to sources of power that support our global climate change objectives.

If the Ontario government is not prepared to take the next step in transitioning to Green Energy then it must, at the very least, adopt Best Practices in emergency response plans such as those used by the Swiss and Germans. The Ontario government must employ a sufficient number of skilled professionals to design, maintain and test these plans and remove the clear conflict of interest that comes from depending on those with a vested interest in the continued use of Nuclear energy let alone the budgets associated with them. Our current approach to protecting the Citizens of Ontario is inappropriate for a first world nation. The Ontario governments planning efforts need to be an example of what should be done so that when disaster strikes, we, the people of Ontario Canada, are recognized as being the smart, compassionate and responsible people the world believes Canadians to be.

[Original Comment ID: 210669]