Letters: Would decisions be different if they were the ones expected to make sacrifices?

Back in January 2021, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) was claiming they had deep roots in agriculture because one of their summer students had grown up on a farm.

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Their most recent campaign proclaims they support agriculture because an employee was able to move back home to the family farm after being hired by the NWMO.

The NWMO doesn’t support agriculture. They advertise that they offer “real” careers so family members can move home and keep the family farm. The NWMO promotes their industry as the “real” careers because they don’t consider full-time farming a worthwhile career.

What about those of us who farm full time?

What about those of us who have sacrificed and put in the years of work to build farms so our children could also farm full time?

To those farmers, the NWMO says we don’t care if you will lose the direct-to-butcher markets for your lambs … we don’t care if processors stop accepting your sheep milk. Concerns shared by Chapman’s Ice Cream about nuclear stigma get ignored in public forums and meetings because they hope nobody takes the time to read their complete reports.

The NWMO doesn’t care if agriculture is sacrificed because their only job is to support the nuclear industry by convincing a community that burying a radioactive problem out of sight is a solution. The former vice-president of site selection told us several times that because we use electricity it was our civic duty to accept the nuclear industry’s waste.

They have told us that since we didn’t sign up during the secret land deal phase we will not be given the same compensation as the property owners surrounding our farm. The NWMO has also made it clear that they don’t place any value on a farm business.

Recently I asked a councillor if they worked to include anything in the agreement to make sure property owners directly surrounded by NWMO-owned land would be compensated with replacement value and he said no. But he said not to worry because in the agreement there should be a way I can apply for funding so I can invest time and money to try to find new markets to replace the ones the NWMO would destroy.

I wonder if it was the business he had spent a lifetime to build and it was his income and retirement fund that was being sacrificed he would feel that a little funding for him to work harder to earn back what was taken from him would be acceptable?

Sadly, all levels of government have the same definition for progress: Support big industry to satisfy the greed of some at the expense of others.

How different would government decisions be if they were the ones who had to make the sacrifices instead?