Over 50 members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation marched Wednesday night to promote a no vote for the planned Deep Geological Repository for nuclear waste right beside Lake Huron.
Organizer Kim George opposes the proposal to bury low and medium nuclear waste deep underground at the Bruce Power site because she said the water must be kept safe to sustain generations to come. She said the repository is not proven safe despite the Peninsula rock it will be placed in.
"We do still have our earthquake's too, which we recently had. Whether they guess that is was man made, it still is a concern because they're going to be digging so deep. It's not a small little room that they're making, they're making a very large room," she said.
A 2.1 magnitude earthquake on December 16 was centered near Hope Bay on the Bruce Peninsula.
"This earthquake that we had, I believe that was our mother earth speaking to us and letting us know that we need to protect her and that she doesn't want these poison's going into her belly," George said. "We'll be getting a lot of waste from Pickering and Darlington and from the states. They should have been more concerned for the people... This is going to build up for years and years to come.
George said she believes, "there is no safe DGR that has been made so far, so to me this is all still very experimental."
A vote by Members of Saugeen Ojibway Nation wraps up Friday evening, and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has promised not to build it without First Nations support.
"There are a lot of people who are against it, so I have really high hopes that it will turn out that we have a no vote," said George.
She said a last-minute offer of $150 million is too little considering the consequences.
"They're trying to bribe us is what I think because it's either our safety or us go for the danger with the money," she added.
George said she thinks the payment is really a small amount of money when it comes to Ontario Power generation.
"They have brought in $1.5 billion last year and then they have $5 billion in revenue. And if you look at that ratio that is really a poor offer to the people," she explained.
She added that in the meantime, the provincial government repeatedly cuts funding for First Nations services like health and education.
In the meantime, testing is being done on properties in South Bruce for another repository to store high-level nuclear fuel waste.
