This piece was published in the Halifax Examiner on October 28, 2025.

On October 13, the Canadian Mining Journal posted an article entitled “Debate grows over Nova Scotia’s Uranium mining future”. I submitted a comment on the article’s website debunking the article’s many inaccuracies, but my comment was removed by the journal’s editor, mr Joseph Quesnel, because he thought it might be libelous. This article is essentially the same as the censored one.

While the Canadian Mining Journal article is theoretically not by mr Kirby, the executive director of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia, but by ‘Canadian Mining Journal Staff’, it only quotes mr. Kirby, who, in case readers wonder, is not a (licensed) mining engineer or a geologist. Given that the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Nova Scotia (APGNS) harassed and threatened a degree-holding Nova Scotia geologist for speaking about the geology of Uranium, it’s astonishing that the same organization never utters a word about the many errors and half-lies by the unqualified mr Kirby. So I’ll do it here.

Mr Kirby: “Experts like the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission say Uranium mining is safe for people and the environment, and decades of experience in Saskatchewan prove it”. Mr. Kirby ignores to mention that Uranium mining in Saskatchewan takes place in an area that is uninhabited except for the tiny Indigenous community of Wollaston Lake (pop 1,200) which is about 60km from the nearest open pit Uranium mine. In contrast, Nova Scotia is the second most densely populated Canadian Province: at least half a million people live within spitting distance from the three potential Uranium exploration sites (see for example this recent article in the Halifax Examiner. These rural communities, including two First Nations communities rely on well-water (Uranium is mobile in the subsurface, especially if it’s moist) and have thriving businesses that would be forced to close in case of a nearby open pit Uranium mine. And let’s not forget that the area is also popular cottage country: Nova Scotia’s tourism income in any year is typically ten times as high as that from the mining sector.

Next quote by mr Kirby: “Discussion about uranium needs to be based on science and facts, not myths and misconceptions”. Pardon me? The citizens who oppose lifting the ban on Uranium exploration and production do so on the basis of available scientific evidence, reported – among others – at length by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) itself. The well-known risks are: exposure to Radon and the risk of elevated levels of Uranium in ground (well)water. In 2019, the then-executive director of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Don James (now retired) stated publicly that Uranium exploration would not result in additional necessary knowledge regarding these known health risks. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, not an organization that issues statements based on ‘myths or misconceptions’ has repeatedly issued dire warnings about Uranium mining anywhere near populated areas.

And then mr Kirby says “Experts like the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission say uranium mining is safe for people and the environment, and decades of experience in Saskatchewan prove it. There is clearly no health, safety or environmental reason to ban uranium.” Can mr Kirby point us to the location of this quote? Because I can’t find it on the CNSC’s website. The only Uranium mines in Canada still in operation are the ones far away from human habitation. Madawaska, Agnew Lake and Elliott Lake, all in southern Ontario, are closed and there are massive and well-documented public health issues resulting from Uranium contamination in those areas. And please don’t tell me that these mines operated decades ago, but we now know how to mine safely. Because open pit Uranium mining (which is what happened in those areas and what would be the process in southern Nova Scotia) always creates radioactive dust, which is a huge public health risk.

Mr Kirby continued: “If Uranium actually caused the problems that some allege, the people of Saskatchewan would tell us so. Instead, 83% of people in Saskatchewan support Uranium mining, according to polling”. This is only partly true: in 2023, when Saskatchewan released its critical mineral strategy, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 73 nations in the province, said that without consultation and built-in benefits sharing, the strategy infringes on Treaty Rights. In other words, the strategy is a yet another example of environmental racism.

Mr Kirby continues: “Uranium mining has bipartisan support in Saskatchewan. Both of the province’s main political parties, the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP, support uranium”. Again: Uranium mining in SK takes place in an almost completely uninhabited part of the Province, the workers are flown in and out on two-week shifts, there is only one community in that part of the world. I bet that if someone suddenly discovered an economic Uranium deposit within 40 km of Saskatoon, the popular opinion would shift massively, and for good reasons (rest assured, no Uranium deposit exists near Saskatoon).

The journal then continues by stating that Nova Scotia made national headlines when the Houston government lifted the province’s decades-long ban on uranium exploration and mining, effective March 26, 2025. The province said the decision would open the door to new research and economic opportunities in the resource sector. Premier Tim Houston has indeed continued to say that lifting the ban would enable research, a statement that is nonsense, because excellent research was done during all the years that the ban existed, by the Provincial Department of Natural Resources itself. More research is always good and always welcome and there was no need to lift a blanket ban to initiate location-specific research.

The article then adequately covers the 7,000+ signature petition recently submitted to the NS Legislature, a petition spearheaded by Sarah Trask who lives near one of the three potential exploration sites. But what’s Sean Kirby’s reaction? “polling commissioned by MANS in 2024 showed 54% of Nova Scotians supported uranium mining, while only 22% opposed it”. The outcome of that poll is controversial because it contains leading questions. Moreover, the word ‘Uranium’ occurs nowhere in that poll so its outcome should never be cited in relation to Uranium mining. 

And then MANS (mr Kirby) maintains Uranium could play a significant role in the Province’s future and that the ban on exploration and mining was not based in science. This statement is also nonsense. The Nova Scotia ban was based on thorough medical and environmental science (the latter by the Provincial DNR itself): mining Uranium in Nova Scotia, the second most densely populated Canadian Province with a thriving rural economy, would be harmful to people, to their livestock, to their crops and to communities at large. As recently as 2019, the Nova Scotia government’s Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development, after hearing testimony from DNR officials and weighing the input from industry representatives (a.o. mr Kirby), adopted the following motion: “Given the significant public concern about the risks of uranium mining, resulting in recommendations of the 1985 inquiry to issue a moratorium on the industry and subsequent legislation by the NDP Government in 2009, the committee reaffirms its support for the ban on uranium mining”.

There is a reason why neither British Columbia or Quebec, nor the US State of Virginia have ever considered ending their ban on Uranium mining. If Canada decides to go for expansion of nuclear energy, all it would have to do is divert its Saskatchewan resource to domestic use. There is enough Uranium in Saskatchewan for at least a century (and renewable energy will have taken over most of the power supply by then).

In conclusion: the debate in Nova Scotia isn’t “growing”. The population is opposed because mining this resource makes no economic sense and would put the health and well-being of citizens too much at risk. Mr Kirby spreads misinformation.