The following is excerpted from Canada, the Provinces, and the Global Nuclear Revival: Advocacy Coalitions in Action by Duane Bratt.
The other
external shock was the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident. Although
it is still too early to determine its full effects, the early results reveal a
couple of things. First, the accident will be used as evidence by both nuclear
coalitions to support their respective policy beliefs. The anti-nuclear
coalition will use it to highlight pre-existing concerns over reactor safety,
radiation exposure, and nuclear waste disposal, and these attacks will be
rebutted by the pronuclear coalition, which will stress the relative absence of
death and injury resulting from the nuclear accident, especially in contrast to
the earthquake and tsunami. Second, it does not appear to have altered the
nuclear agenda of any of the policy brokers in Canada. Ottawa still went ahead
and sold off aecl’s reactor division to SNC-Lavalin, Ontario went ahead with
the public hearings that were required for its new nuclear build project, and
Point Lepreau is still being refurbished. Both the Alberta and the Saskatchewan
government reiterated their previous nuclear stance, although with a lot more
enthusiasm in Saskatchewan. Only in Quebec was there an apparent policy
reversal resulting from Fukushima-Daiichi when the Charest government delayed
the refurbishment of Gentilly-2 pending more analysis. However, even in Quebec,
this simply reflected a stronger anti-nuclear sentiment that had existed in the
province before Fukushima-Daiichi. For example, in
2008 only 22 percent of Quebecers supported nuclear energy in their province. This support plummeted even lower to only 17 percent in
polls taken in June 2011.
Quebec has, by far, the lowest
support for nuclear energy in the country.
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