NH #480: Saskatchewan First Nations Targeted for Untested Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Candyce Paul

Saskatchewan First Nations activists Candyce Paul (r) and a lurking Marius Paul (lower l)
Interview by Libbe HaLevy

This Week’s Featured Interview:

  • Saskatchewan First Nations activist Candyce Paul has lived in northern Saskatchewan for more than three decades with her husband, Marius Paul. She spent many years living and learning the traditional northern culture which she is passing on to the next generation. In 1987 she graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology with an Honours Diploma in Architectural Technology. This led her to supervising construction on a large hospital addition and later to Chairing the Housing Committee at English River First Nation where she and her family live. Candyce has also facilitated Aboriginal Head Start Programs at English River First Nation and trained facilitators in the nine Bands of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council. She co-founded Reclaiming Our Youth Home Front School, where she worked with a wide range of students. 

    Most recently, Candyce has taken on the role of Emergency Management Team Command for her community at English River First Nation – La Plonge to coordinate a response to the pandemic and other emergencies like flooding and forest fires. When her community became a target of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization on a proposal to store high-level nuclear waste in her family’s territory she became the Outreach Coordinator for Committee for Future Generations. This group has been educating the public about the risks of nuclear waste and uranium mining for the past 9 years.

  • Committee for Future Generations 

  • Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Co-operative (ICUCEC)

“Mother and Child”
Logo for Committee for Future Generations
Painting by Marius Paul; used with permission of the painter.

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Nuclear waste-powered batteries that are “perfectly safe” and will last anywhere from 20 to 28,000 years!  Another boneheaded idea to convince the public that nuclear waste is actually a resource!

Activism Links:

  • ARTICLE by Beyond Nuclear:  All the info you need to make public comments to the NRC on why the proposed Consolidated “interim” Storage Facility (CISF) is a bad idea whose time deserves to never come.  Includes ideas for comments you can use for your own submission to the NRC.  DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 22, 2020. 
  • A Message from the Most Bombed Nation on Earth – article by Ian Zabarte, PrincipL Man of the Western Shoshone Nation of Indians, on the devastation created by nuclear tests conducted on Shoshone treaty lands in the U.S. state of Nevada.