Sask. government to release nuclear power report

On nuclear power the Sask Party and NDP are like two peas in a pod. The NDP did not release the report because they wanted to develop nuclear power but the report probably shows many of the problems with such development. Now the Sask. Party which out of power clamoured for its release has yet to release it. Imagine the minister of Enterprise and Innovation hasnt been enterprising enough to read the report yet!
The Environment Minister can't find the report! What sort of half-awake half-baked ministers are these? One minister had read the material and poos poos its importance and says that it may not even be made public. You can gather from all this that the report is important in that it shows the problems with nuclear power, the last thing either the NDP or the Sask. Party wanted to hear. Will the NDP take up the task of a good opposition and like the Sask. Party demand the report's release?

Sask. government to release nuclear power report
Last Updated: Thursday, March 27, 2008 |
After once criticizing the NDP government for "dithering" on making a nuclear power report public, the ruling Saskatchewan Party is now getting ready to release the information itself.

"Our commitment to release it is going to be kept," Premier Brad Wall said Thursday.

The development comes after being in power several months and follows some mixed signals from cabinet minister.

In 2005, then-Opposition leader Wall told a business group that SaskPower had done work on how Saskatchewan might use nuclear power, but the NDP government had refused to table the information. Saskatchewan is the world's leading producer of uranium, but doesn't have nuclear reactors.

Making the report public was the only way Saskatchewan people could know for sure whether or not a nuclear power plant was a good idea for the province, Wall said.

"All we get from the NDP is more dithering," Wall said, according to the text of his Dec. 8, 2005, speech to the North Saskatoon Business Association.

Wall also said then that within months of a Saskatchewan Party government being elected, Enterprise Saskatchewan would be directed to make SaskPower's nuclear power information public.

After four months in power, that hasn't happened. Enterprise and Innovation Minister Lyle Stewart said Wednesday he hasn't read the SaskPower report.

He also confirmed what Environment Minister Nancy Heppner said in January — that the government could not find the report.

"That, as far as I know, is still the case," Stewart said.

However, one of Stewart's cabinet colleagues, Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff, said he has read the material. He said the information is not substantial and may not be made public.

"I've had a chance to look at those documents," Cheveldayoff said. "One involves siting, but it was a very elementary study that has some commercial confidentiality to it."

The Opposition New Democrats don't buy either story.

It's more likely that the government doesn't want things in the report made public, such as the high cost of such a plant and the possible risk to the people who live near it, New Democrat MLA Frank Quennell said.

"I think the report certainly raises the serious consequences of a nuclear accident, given where a nuclear reactor would have to be located," said Quennell, a former minister responsible for SaskPower who was briefed on the contents of the report.

According to the report, a nuclear power plant would be located near a water source and close to a population centre, he said.

Meanwhile, after CBC News asked the government about the report and what ministers had said about it, there were signs the file was being moved back to the front burner.

Wall has instructed SaskPower to gather all of the documents related to the nuclear power file with an eye to making as much of it public as possible, a spokesman for the premier said.