Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 12th, 2008

[Cassie Doyle]

That is correct.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Did you let Ms. Keen know that you were also a member of AECL's board of directors at that time?

[Cassie Doyle]

I did not.

And I would mention that my role in all matters related to the portfolio is to be the senior advisor to the minister. My role on the AECL board is to represent the shareholder, which is the Government of Canada. The share is held in trust by the Minister of Natural Resources.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you understand, though, that there might be a perceived conflict of interest here, especially on these conversations with Ms. Keen, on whether you are representing the interests of the department or AECL?

[Cassie Doyle]

I take a very different view on that. I don't in any way perceive any conflict in my role.

I do have a very wide portfolio. I am the senior advisor to the minister on all matters within the portfolio, and that's the role of a deputy minister, to serve the public interest on all aspects of the portfolio. So I don't perceive of it as any conflict.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

But AECL has a certain narrative or agenda. The regulator is regulating AECL, and the minister is supposed to be ensuring that AECL performs well and also complies with the regulator. You don't see at all that your presence in this conversation between the minister and the regulator, or the commissioner or the president of the nuclear safety regulator, puts you in any position of at least perceived conflict of interest?

AECL certainly was lobbying for restarting the reactor, and the commissioner was saying, “No, you are violating your licence.” The minister was trying to find a way—at least he told us—to bring these two sides together. But your appointment to the AECL board certainly creates a perception of conflict of interest.

[Cassie Doyle]

I think I've canvassed this point, but I will just say that the purpose of the calls that I attended—they were organized calls with the CNSC—was, one, to gather information on what was possible in terms of resolving the situation, and two, to ask that there be urgent action taken on the part of CNSC, just given the issue as it emerged across Canada as quite a serious medical emergency. I don't in any way perceive that there was a conflict in my role as the senior advisor to the minister on all matters within his portfolio.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you know in history whether there has ever been a deputy minister of natural resources appointed to the board of directors of AECL?

[Cassie Doyle]

I think it's a 50-year organization. I'd have to check that. I do not have that information, but I could provide it.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'm curious. Based on the research I've done, I haven't seen that at all, but I could be wrong. I'm very interested in finding whether this is the first time ever that a deputy minister of natural resources has been appointed to the AECL. Could you please get back to the committee with that information, if you can? Your sources are much more reliable than mine.

It's still an issue that I felt it was important for you to at least let the committee know, when you were here on January 16, that you were on the board of directors. We found out only through order in council reports that you were on the board of directors. Neither you, nor the minister, nor anybody else from the government side let us know that you were appointed to the board of directors. Don't you think that was a valuable piece of information that we needed to know?

[Cassie Doyle]

The issue is an important one. It relates to the role a deputy minister plays.

As to the information on my appointment to the board of AECL, for one thing, it is a relatively recent appointment, and I felt that most members of the committee would actually be aware of it, because the OIC had been made public. But as I mentioned, I do believe it's consistent with the role I play.

I should note for the record that many deputy ministers serve on boards of crown corporations, so there has been a long practice that deputy ministers are assigned. It's particularly relevant at times when there may be changes anticipated or may be reviews under way. So the intent of the government in appointing me to the board of the AECL was to ensure that there was close communication between the shareholder—the Government of Canada—and the AECL following the announcement of a review of the structure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

Now we'll go to the Bloc Québécois.

Madame DeBellefeuille, you have up to seven minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Doyle, for joining us today to give us a clearer picture of what really happened. I have to admit that the more witnesses we hear from, the less clearer things seem to be. I do not want to trouble you with timeline issues, but I think it is important to talk about this.

I was rather surprised to learn from the testimony of MDS Nordion officials and from several newspaper reports, that MDS Nordion had implemented their emergency protocol as early as November 22 and that the company had even assessed the potential shortage. They had assessed that shortage at 30%. Ultimately, it was deemed to be 35%. On November 30, they even notified their shareholders that in the event of an extended shutdown, there could potentially be some financial repercussions.

I was rather surprised to learn this and to hear the minister's comments. I would like to quote a passage from the minister's testimony on January 16 last. I believe you accompanied the minister to that meeting. At the time, he said this:

There was an urgency to this situation, we should make no mistake, as the events unfolded on December 3, once that urgency started to materialize.

This observation leads me to believe that some officials at AECL and at Natural Resource Canada did not inform the minister as early as November 22 of the need to implement his emergency protocol. We were informed by MDS Nordion that Ms. Guindon represented NRCan at a meeting during which the reactor shutdown was discussed.

What did Ms. Guindon subsequently do with this information? Did she share it with you, the Deputy Minister who has a duty to inform the Minister, as early as November 22?

[Cassie Doyle]

It is a very important question, and I understand the time the committee is taking in reviewing these timelines. It's one that I have spent a considerable amount of time reviewing myself.

I can tell you that the meeting of November 22 was one that was scheduled to address another issue. This was not the purpose of the meeting. The official who attended that meeting did receive information that was not at that time considered to be serious enough to report to anyone else in the department, and indeed it wasn't conveyed to anyone else in the department.

The reason for that was because in the discussion at the meeting there was also the very strong sense from AECL that their one-pump solution would be successful in getting the reactor up and operational and that the extended outage was temporary. That's the review I've undertaken in my department. The results of the November 22 meeting were not conveyed or shared with anyone in the department. It was seen as being information that was in no way urgent or of importance to report up to more senior people in the department, including myself.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Doyle.

Nevertheless, it is still surprising that the chief supplier would implement his emergency protocol, while the department would not see the need to or would delay doing so.

I have carefully read the protocol on information sharing. I find it very interesting. However, is this really the first such protocol? In 2005—and Mr. Trost attended that meeting— problems with the Chalk River reactor were identified. Are you telling me that this is the first official protocol on information sharing between NRCan, AECL and Health Canada? Is that what you're saying?

[Cassie Doyle]

We have regular communication, almost all the time, between members of the portfolio, including AECL, but it's only coming out of the situation last November and December and the seriousness of it that we've put in place a formal protocol. So this is, to my knowledge, the first time it has been formalized, and particularly at the deputy minister level.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Ms. Doyle, we know that the reactor first went on line 52 years ago, that it will need to be replaced one day and that Canada is one of the world's leading suppliers of isotopes. However, you are telling me quite frankly that there was no official communication protocol in place to deal with shortages or other problems. I am rather disturbed to find out this morning that an organization of this magnitude did not have a protocol in place, when many other organizations, especially those that have major responsibilities, are required to have a communication protocol in place from day one.

According to the protocol, communication measures are implemented when there is a perceived risk of a shortage of isotopes. When the crisis started, when the reactor was shut down, people did not seem to take things too seriously, in my opinion. No one was advised of plan B, should problems arise.

Do you agree with me that NRCan and AECL are primarily to blame for the situation?

[Cassie Doyle]

Mr. Chair, I have spent many weeks reviewing this situation in my own mind. I can tell you that I believe my department acted responsibly with the information it had on any given day. The information was insufficient. There was, at times, uncertainty as to the duration of the outage. From day to day there were great efforts made on the part of all agencies, and certainly my department, to resolve the situation early on. When it became apparent that the outage could extend well into December, then we were certainly seized, at my level and at the ministerial level, in a very intense way to try to resolve the situation.

Could there be improvements in the way we did it? Absolutely. That's why what's crucial from my perspective is that there will be lessons learned. One of the key lessons is that we do need a formal communications protocol to ensure that our communication is timely and at the appropriate level--that it's not done as a tag-on to a particular meeting that was scheduled for another purpose, that it's not done through emails sent to junior officials within the department, that the notification be at the appropriate level.

I consider the appropriate level to be the deputy minister level. It is my responsibility to debrief the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. DeBellefeuille.

We go now to the New Democratic Party.

Ms. Bell, for up to seven minutes.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to the witnesses for appearing.

As I was third on the question list, some of my questions have been asked--and successfully answered, I might add.

One of the things I've been struggling with from the beginning is the communications piece of it. It seems to me that's where it all fell down. What I'm hearing from all witnesses is that the communications could have been better.

I'm pleased to see this new protocol. Was that developed with the other departments, with AECL, with MDS Nordion, and Health Canada? I'm assuming it probably was, so that everyone would be aware of this protocol.

[Cassie Doyle]

Yes.

Mr. Chair, the protocol is signed by AECL, Health Canada, and NRCan.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

We heard that a day in the life of an isotope is pretty short, two or three days, so it's essential to have, as you said, the earliest possible notice in the event of a shutdown.

I struggle again with what was in place before. I'd heard there was a labour dispute at Chalk River a number of years ago, and it was deemed to be an essential service, basically, because it was so important to maintain isotope production.

I'm wondering if there were any protocols in place at that time that could have been used, and if there were, why weren't they? If not, then I guess it's a moot question.

[Cassie Doyle]

As I've responded to the previous member, there was not a formal communications protocol in place. We now have it in place, and it has been signed by the deputy ministers of Health Canada, NRCan, and the CEO of AECL to ensure that this will not happen again.

But looking backwards, I don't believe there was a protocol in place.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

You're on the board of AECL. Mr. McGee was here previously and he mentioned some documents describing a worst-case scenario. I'm just wondering if we could get those documents tabled for the committee, for our information.

[Cassie Doyle]

I'm happy to follow up with Mr. McGee on that. We'll follow up on that.