Watch The Agenda with Steve Paikin tonight (September 7) on TV Ontario. I will be there, along with the Ontario energy minister Brad Duguid, Conservative energy critic John Yakabuski, NDP critic Peter Tabuns, and Green Party critic Steve Dyck.
The topic of tonight’s debate: Which party has the best plan for keeping Ontario’s lights on for the next four years?
To watch the video of the debate, click here or view the embedded video below.
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We have a virtual blackout out of the news coming from Japan’s nuclear disaster. Barely a mention of the three meltdowns and the three containment breaches at Fukushima. Last week the Prime Minister of Japan resigned, which was driven by the admission that 12 mile evacuation zone would be uninhabitable for many years and that the government would now start to test widely for radiation. The public had been forced to do their own testing because the government had not been testing widely. Radiation levels are life threatening in many areas 50+ miles away from the crippled plant. It is not reasonable to talk about nuclear power without taking in to account the true damage of the Fukushima disaster. We are being manipulated by false information and no press coverage of the radiation crisis. Out of sight and out of mind.
The proposal to spend enormous amounts of Ontario government money(mine and yours)to build new nuclear plants with both bankrupt us(expenditure very large relative to Ontario assets)and imperil the future of Life in Ontario.
Shame on the press for not bringing the story of the radiation damage of Japan to the rest of humanity so we can weigh our risks. Does the nuclear industry own the press?
Rebecca, thanks for your comment. I have to disagree about press coverage of Fukushima. There has been far more coverage of the nuclear situation than there has been about the real disaster, which was the 14-metre wave going 500 kilometres an hour that slammed into Japan’s northeast coast on March 11. That killed tens of thousands of people, and made half a million homeless. After 180 days, radiation has not killed a single person.
In fact, Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is BY FAR the safest of the large-scale electricity sources. A nuclear plant gets walloped by a nine-magnitude earthquake and 14-metre tsunami, and the worst that happens is that the utility has to write off three reactors.
Steve, I am grateful that Steve Paikin had the foresight to include you in the discussion last night. Your facts and perspective were most welcome. I especially liked how you put the stranded debt in the context of its actual share of our energy bill. In the overall scheme of things it is a pittance (as you said 0.07 cents/kWh) if you were to add the entire cost to nuclear.
It’s too bad that you aren’t one of the candidates. On energy policy, at least, I would vote for you.