Kebaowek First Nation is a part of the larger Algonquin Nation. The Nation is split by the Ottawa/Quebec border. There are approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people in the Algonquin-Anishinabeg Nation. Kebaowek First Nation is on the Quebec side of the border with nearly 900 members.

Kebaowek’s reserve lands are on Lake Kipawa, Québec. The Nation represents over 1,100 registered members living on and off reserve, largely in Québec and Ontario.

The community of Kebaowek First Nation is located 15 kilometres from the shores of the Kichi Sibi in Quebec, approximately 387 kilometres north-east from Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. Although Kebaowek’s community is upriver from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Kebaowek exercises its sovereignty over their unceded territory on both sides (Quebec and Ontario) of the Kichi Sibi, engaging in hunting, fishing, trapping, and harvesting practices to steward the lands they have occupied since time immemorial. They continue to be a vital part of the land and river’s health today, using the culturally significant land around Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is planning to construct the Near Surface Disposal Facility to hold nuclear waste at its main facility in Chalk River, Ontario. The nuclear waste dump would become a permanent facility on 37 hectares of land, holding over 1 million metric tonnes of solid radioactive and non-radioactive legacy waste. That is equivalent to approximately 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools of toxic materials. The facility is built into a mountainside that slopes down toward the Kichi Sibi, approximately just one kilometre away from the river.

The NSDF itself would have 10 different storage cells to hold nuclear waste near the surface, with a special bottom liner to protect the soil from contamination. The Facility is expected to operate for 50 years until it is full. At that point, engineers will construct a complex series of protective layers to seal the nuclear waste from coming into contact with plants, animals, and wildlife. After 550 years, radiation from the waste at the NSDF is expected to be negligible by CNL.

Kebaowek is opposed to the NSDF for several reasons. Below are issues raised by Kebaowek in their judicial review:

1. The decision (to authorize the construction of the NSDF) is incorrect because the Commission erred in determining that it had no jurisdiction to decide whether UNDRIP or UNDA 2021 applied to the discharge the duty to consult.
2. The decision is incorrect and in breach of the duty to consult and accommodate because the Commission erred in assessing the content of consultation by failing to consider UNDRIP as a contextual factor.
3. The decision is unreasonable and in breach of the duty to consult and accommodate because it fails to properly consider the impacts of the NSDF on the environment and assert section 35 rights.

Nuclear waste is a byproduct created from nuclear reactors. Reactors may be used for research or medical purposes, and for processing fuel.

Nuclear waste is a hazardous byproduct that is toxic to humans and the non-human world. High doses of radiation can cause nausea and vomiting within hours of exposure, and in extreme cases, death. It can destroy the DNA of animals, essentially erasing their identity in passing on their genetics through reproduction. Ongoing exposure to radiation has been linked to cancer and early death.

Canada has approved its first-ever waste dump for radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. Legacy waste at Chalk River Laboratories comes from 80 years of nuclear research and development.

Known as The Near Surface Disposal Facility (“NSDF”), the dump is intended to hold one million cubic metres of poorly categorized, long-lived nuclear waste in an above-ground mound. This includes waste from accidents, including the world’s first reactor core meltdown in 1952. An estimated 100,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste at the NSDF would be transported from other parts of Canada and around the world, including from private nuclear corporations, hospitals, universities and other federal nuclear sites. Kebaowek argues that the waste needs to be placed in a long-term storage facility away from the Kichi Sibi that can contain and isolate it for thousands of years.

There are major concerns for the proposed NSDF by Kebaowek, other First Nations, and community members. You can read the Indigenous-led Environmental Impact Assessment for more information than below if you want the full picture: https://www.stopnuclearwaste.com/nsdfbookletjune2023

The land where the NSDF is proposed is sacred, culturally-significant, and is a space where wildlife thrives. Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg conducted their own Environmental Impact Assessment between 2022 and 2023, recording numerous threatened, endangered, and culturally-significant species at the NSDF site.

Keboawek is also concerned about the construction of the NSDF. This specifically includes: clearing vegetation, such as trees, shrubs, and plants; damage from transporting construction equipment; large-scale terraforming of the land, such as excavation, blasting, and grading; potential death of fish and wildlife; metal leaching and acid rock drainage from blasted rock; and releasing toxic materials into the soil, water, and air.

There is also scepticism that the nuclear waste will only have low levels of radioactivity. Kebaowek and other community groups expect intermediate level waste will be stored at the facility. The NSDF is operational for only 50 years, but what happens after the facility is closed? All of the radioactive waste will stay on-site forever, with radioactivity expected to naturally dissipate after 550 years. Ole Hendrickson, a local working as the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area researcher, says the radioactivity from 80 years of legacy waste from CNL will be radioactive for much longer than 550 years.

Mistakes are inevitable. Mistakes are what makes us all human. Impacts from the mistakes that will be made by humans in the planning, construction, and operation of the NSDF are concerning. Kebaowek is extremely concerned about the risk of water contamination. Water is life, and radioactive contamination in the Perch Lake Watershed and the Kichi Sibi would be devastating for the human and non-human world at the site and downriver.

The approved site for NSDF is of particular importance to Kebaowek and has been used since time immemorial. Just 150 metres away is Kinew Kiishkaabikaan, Migizi Kiishkaabikaan, or “Oiseau Rock,” a place where Algonquin-Anishinabeg people hold ceremonies. Pictographs have been inscribed at Oiseau Rock. It was the place where sacred offerings of tobacco and food were first witnessed by settlers back in the 17th century.

Not far from Oiseau Rock is another sacred site, known as Pointe au Baptheme. A creek from this site would supply the nuclear waste facility, adding insult to injury for Kebaowek as they seek to protect their lands and waters.

Although RAVEN applauds Kebaowek’s involvement in a judicial review of the NSDF in considering endangered species, we do not provide funding for that case. The Sierra Club Foundation Canada, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, and Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility are sharing the costs of the litigation with Kebaowek First Nation for their other case.

If Kebaowek receives a favourable decision from the courts, the CNSC will need to restart the consultation process with Kebaowek and other First Nations affected by the NSDF. The Nations will need to give their free, prior, and informed consent in the consultation process for the project to go ahead. With Kebaowek’s interests in mind, it will ensure their rights and land at the site won’t be impacted by a nuclear waste facility. Kebaowek knows that something needs to be done with the waste, and so it would likely move to a different location, much further away from the Kichi Sibi and away from where endangered and threatened species call home.

The case, if won, will also provide clarity on how Canada needs to implement UNDRIP into law, especially with how it pertains to the Duty to Consult and Accommodate. This will mean that all projects that go through the federal environmental assessment process will need to include free, prior, and informed consent for all affected Indigenous Nations. A win for Kebaowek would mean that Indigenous Nations will get to say where, when, and how resource projects occur on their territory, especially when it comes to hazardous waste as it relates directly to Kebaowek’s case.

Yes. The case will set a precedent for how the Duty to Consult and Accommodate should apply under Canada’s new UNDA. Although there are a few other Indigenous-led cases that relate to UNDRIP, no other Nations have established the above precedent before.

85% of all the funds raised go to Kebaowek First Nation to fund their legal challenge. RAVEN receives 15% of campaign funds raised to sustain our operation initiatives, including education programs, new access to justice funds, and travel to community for relationship-building.

If a legal challenge has ended, and the money raised exceeds the litigation expenses, we place the remaining funds into the Discretionary Litigation Fund. We use the money in the Discretionary Litigation Fund to add funds to any of our litigation campaigns that need extra funds for any reason (e.g. to respond to a Crown motion, or to commission additional expert reports).