Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is Far from Adequate

A briefing by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) arguing that Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is outdated and insufficient to handle a catastrophic accident of the scale seen at Fukushima.

• The current nuclear emergency plan in Ontario is considered inadequate because it is designed for an accident several times less severe than the 2011 Fukushima disaster and fails to address the needs of children, hospital patients, and the elderly.
• There is a lack of preparation for health professionals to manage large numbers of contaminated patients, and public awareness regarding iodine pills is insufficient. While pills are pre-distributed within 10 kilometres of reactors and available within 50 kilometres, CAPE suggests pre-distribution should extend to at least 20 kilometres to align with international practices and the model used for the Point Lepreau reactor in New Brunswick.
• The proximity of Ontario's nuclear reactors to the Great Lakes poses a significant risk to the drinking water of tens of millions of Canadians and Americans in the event of a catastrophic accident, yet the emergency plan lacks provisions for providing clean drinking water to these populations.
• A significant portion of the population is at risk due to the location of nuclear stations; half of Ontarians and one in six Canadians live within 60 kilometres of the Pickering and Darlington stations.

APA

Vakil, C. (2017). Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is Far from Adequate. Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. https://cape.ca/ontarios-nuclear-emergency-response-plan-is-far-from-adequate/

Chicago

Vakil, Cathy. Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is Far from Adequate. Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, 2017. https://cape.ca/ontarios-nuclear-emergency-response-plan-is-far-from-adequate/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Vakil |first1=Cathy |title=Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is Far from Adequate |publisher=Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment |date=19 June 2017 |url=https://cape.ca/ontarios-nuclear-emergency-response-plan-is-far-from-adequate/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{vakil2017ontarios, author = {Vakil, Cathy}, title = {{Ontario's Nuclear Emergency Response Plan is Far from Adequate}}, institution = {Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}, year = {2017}, month = jun, url = {https://cape.ca/ontarios-nuclear-emergency-response-plan-is-far-from-adequate/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }