Canada’s nuclear waste regulator doesn’t want just anybody brandishing the trefoil, the international symbol for radiation.
In fact, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) notes, it is illegal to depict the trefoil if there is a “reasonable belief” among those who see it that radiation, a nuclear substance or prescribed equipment is present.
But in cases where no such belief exists – if it “is simply a statement being made,” as the CNSC put it – the regulator is unworried.
Under those criteria, it is difficult to imagine the CNSC taking issue with anti-nuclear-waste signs throughout the Flin Flon-Creighton area that feature the trefoil.
What reasonable person is going to look at a homemade, somewhat clumsily spray-painted sign affixed to a telephone pole or tree and think, “There must be radiation here”?
Just last week, Mike Krizanc, communications manager for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), shared his succinct opinion on whether anti-waste signs can use the trefoil: “It’s not illegal.”
Spat
All of which makes it all the more inexplicable that the Town of Creighton has chosen to involve itself in what amounts to a spat between those who favour storing nuclear waste near the community and those who are
against it.
At the urging of the Community Liaison Committee (CLC), which is studying nuclear waste storage, town council has directed its public works department to tear down the aforementioned spray-painted signs if they are on public property.
In a letter to council, the CLC wrote that “over-use” or “inappropriate use” of the trefoil could cause citizens to become “complacent when encountering this symbol in situations where caution truly should be
exercised.”
While affirming its support of free speech, the CLC added that concern exists that the public will be “misinformed” by the signage.
Such a statement fails to give the public much credit. Distinguishing between a homemade protest sign and an actual radioactive site is not an overly complex exercise.
There had also been suggestions from some CLC members that use of the trefoil in the absence of radioactivity is against the law, a myth that the CNSC and NWMO have now debunked in the case of these protest signs.
All things considered, the CLC’s case for restricting the public’s right to protest nuclear waste storage was weak. While Creighton chose to heed the CLC’s suggestion, Flin Flon city council wisely abstained.
The debate over nuclear waste storage in our area has proven to be divisive. Efforts to limit how opponents express themselves, particularly when Canada’s nuclear waste regulator and the NWMO take no issue, risk exacerbating the
situation.
