Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and the public who are here today.
I have with me today Mrs. Heather Kleb, who is our director of regulatory affairs.
We're here today to speak on behalf of the 70,000 people who work in Canada's nuclear industry. Everyone who works in our industry, be they managers, scientists, technicians, or construction workers, not only work in but have their homes in the communities where our industry resides. They're ensuring the safety of our communities and are protecting the environment we live in today, and therefore our first and most important priority is safety.
The Canadian Nuclear Association has about 100 members. They work in uranium mining and exploration, fuel processing, electricity generation, and the production and advancement of nuclear medicine.
As may be expected, many of our projects and activities are subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. In fact, our members have completed numerous, many—lots of language like that—environmental assessments in the 15-year period during which the act has been in effect. Environmental assessments have become an integral part of how we conduct our business, and we have gained considerable insight from carrying them out.
While we believe that the environmental assessment is a valuable planning tool that leads to improved decision-making, we also believe that there are areas for improvement, particularly regarding process efficiency and predictability.
Our recommended improvements include the following: a goal should be one project, one assessment by the best-placed regulator; environmental assessments, or EAs, should be effective; EA requirements should be proportional to the risks; EA decisions should be consistent with permitting and authorization decisions; and the EA process and decision-making should be timely.
I will elaborate.
Regarding the principle of one project, one assessment by the best-placed regulator, it's our view that to truly be effective, a project should be subject to one EA only, and that EA should be conducted by the jurisdiction or regulator with the most comprehensive knowledge of the project or industry. In other words, it should be the best-placed regulator. For most of our industry, that would mean the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The only exception we'll bring up would be the province of Saskatchewan, where Canada's uranium mining industry resides. While the CNSC is a knowledgeable regulator, one can never underestimate the value of local knowledge, whether it be local community, aboriginal, or regulatory knowledge. In either case, our members would recommend that the agency with the most appropriate authority over a project assume responsibility for the EA and the decision. They also recommend that one assessment satisfy both federal and provincial requirements.
If the province of Saskatchewan were designated the best-placed regulator for uranium mining, it would be fairly straightforward, as Saskatchewan has one central agency that is responsible for uranium mining EAs. In most situations where the federal government is the best-placed jurisdiction, responsibility for EAs should be consolidated in a strengthened and appropriately resourced Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the CNSC.
The Jobs and Economic Growth Act went some distance toward achieving this consolidation by ensuring that where the CNSC is the full life-cycle regulator, its EA and licensing process will substitute for the CEAA process. Recent efforts to establish a memorandum of understanding between the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the CNSC allow the CNSC's EA to substitute for an EA by a review panel.
This also went some distance toward a single assessment process. However, there is an opportunity to build on these efforts by further consolidating the CNSC licensing process and the EA process in a single process when screenings are needed.
There's also an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the EAs so that Canadians can have confidence that they're fostering environmentally and socially responsible economic activity. The intent of the act is to promote sustainable development and to thereby achieve and maintain a healthy environment and a healthy economy. However, the focus is obviously, and often, on the environment rather than on the economic aspects of the project.
Improvements could be achieved through better integration of the environmental, social, and economic considerations. These steps would help ensure the EAs are fostering the environmentally responsible economic activity that underlines Canadian prosperity.
For example, nearly 6,000 federal EAs are conducted each year, requiring scientific studies and reports, but there's limited allowance for the application of these EAs to similar or related projects. This situation could be improved by enhancing the precedent value of EAs, which would also increase the cost effectiveness. Maximum use should be made of the information that's already been collected through previously completed EAs.
The scope of the EAs should also be proportionate to the environmental risk. The act allows for three types of EAs—screenings, comprehensive studies, and review panels—so that the more likely a project is to cause significant adverse environmental effects, the more substantive the process, but because of overly inclusive law list regulations and underdeveloped exclusion list regulations, routine administrative activities such as approvals made pursuant to a licence can trigger an EA. That is because the EA process is triggered for projects involving the listed legal provision without consideration for the extent, the scope, of the activity in question.
Under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the process is triggered whenever a licence is issued or amended or an approval is issued pursuant to a licence. Such approvals should not trigger an EA when there are no new risks. The EA scope should instead focus on the risks that were not previously addressed. Known and manageable risks that were previously addressed through EAs and other regulatory processes should not be re-evaluated. That undermines the earlier process and leads to unnecessary duplication. This could be prevented by amending the exclusion list regulations to exempt minor approvals for the existing facilities from another EA and modifying the act to exempt activities that improve environmental performance.
Re-evaluating should also be avoided in subsequent authorizations and permitting processes. Currently, the act has no application to permitting, licensing, or any other authorizations that are required following the EA. That in fact triggers the EA. As a result, these authorizations are not always consistent with the EA conclusions.
The absence of coordination is particularly apparent on the federal level when an authorization under the Fisheries Act may not be acceptable under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act licensing process. Ideally, if an EA concludes that a project is unlikely to result in significant adverse environmental effects and the risks addressed by subsequent authorizations were previously assessed, then authorizations should be certain and timely.
To increase certainty, CNA members recommend that proponents be able to opt for review of permits and other authorizations as early in the EA process as they choose. Also, Fisheries Act and other authorizations should be maintained as discrete processes, separate from the EA, and not delay the EA process.
Together these recommendations would improve certainty and the timeliness of the EA process. The duration of an EA process can be long and unpredictable. According to the Major Projects Management Office, the typical timeframe for the approved major projects in Canada is four years, not counting the studies carried out by the proponent.
In closing, I'd like to reiterate that once the best-placed regulator is identified, federal and provincial agencies should accept each other's processes and decisions as equivalent to their own. EA decisions should focus on the socio-economic as well as the environmental. Previously assessed projects and activities should not be re-evaluated. Authorizations and permits should be consistent with previous assessments. Lastly, the formalized agreement should be established to improve timeliness of the EA process.
Thank you.