Evidence of meeting #5 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was radioactive.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations, Bruce Power
—worthy of more discussion.
Liberal
Private Consultant, As an Individual
I would simply say that the time doesn't allow me to answer that fully. I'd rather not.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
We now go to Mr. Albas, for five minutes.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thought we were going to be moving to the second panel.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
If you can keep it under five minutes, I'd be eternally grateful, as your chair.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you.
Maybe we could hear a bit more from Dr. Isaacs in regard to the question that was just posed.
Dr. Isaacs, what do you think it would require in the reporting relationship right now? Should it be the Minister of Environment? Do you have anything to offer in regard to that?
Private Consultant, As an Individual
I am not intimately familiar with the lash-up of responsibility in the Canadian Parliament. I believe there should be an independent oversight of the activities. I think it should be monitored by Parliament and it should be done in a way that perceived as being competent and free of conflicts of interest.
It's not something that I have enough expertise on to tell you whether or not the current system is appropriate.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
The current arrangements that the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has.... You believe it's independent in terms of its mandate. Is that correct?
Private Consultant, As an Individual
Absolutely. It's independent. It has to meet the licensing requirements of an independent regulator. It has a board of oversight and a board of directors. In my experience, it is at a place where the accountability is totally appropriate.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Great, thank you.
I'll go to Bruce Power briefly. Again, you seem to say there were some complications with the path that some have said. Should a particular minister be in charge or should be Parliament?
Maybe you could expand upon that.
Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations, Bruce Power
There are three dimensions to this. There is the independent regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, that will license the operation of a waste facility. They are quasi-judicial, and under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, report to Parliament through the Minister of Natural Resources. That's point one.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is an independent organization that reports to the Minister of Natural Resources as well.
You have the Minister of Environment, who has accountability for the Impact Assessment Act. Any project with one of these large facilities that we're talking about here, debating today, would go through an impact assessment process. Obviously there would be interaction with the independent CNSC in that.
When we're thinking about these things, we really need to be clear what we're talking about and looking at those items in those buckets.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
In regard to the current governance structure, look, Madame Pauzé is a parliamentarian I respect. She has brought forward a motion to have the environment committee study this area, so to say there is not ongoing ability by Parliament to weigh in and to check in to make sure that we have the best governance possible and to consult experts such as some of the panel that are here today....
Do you believe the current framework we have works well and that there are ongoing ways for parliamentarians to check to see if things can be made better? Is that correct?
Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations, Bruce Power
Yes, absolutely.
As a Canadian, I think it is really good that our public officials are taking the time to review governance. Any good organization always reviews its governance and makes sure whether it's working as effectively as it needs to. I think that's an important exercise.
As it relates to nuclear waste policy, as we need to move forward and get moving on some of these particular items, there are rigorous processes in place that involve all of those government agencies and engage Canadians, and what I would strongly recommend the committee consider is to really go through a project. Take the South Bruce project and walk through the entire regulatory process as you're looking at the governance and convince yourselves.
I think it's a very rigorous process. In fact, there are so many hand-offs in the process you wonder, for Canadians and people trying to engage, if there are actually too many hand-offs, frankly. That's what concerns me more as a citizen.
It's good that you're doing a review of the governance process, but I would walk through some examples and try to not have a pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear debate. Walk through the process and try to understand what it is that you're trying to actually resolve here.
Liberal
February 15th, 2022 / 12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Chair; and thanks, Mr. Duguid, for sharing time with me.
I'll continue with Mr. Scongack on an article that I've just read from TVO, which says that in the past week Bruce Nuclear has announced a plan to explore the development of fusion power, fusion as an opportunity to possibly reduce radioactivity of nuclear waste. It discusses the potential of fusion as both an energy source and a way to reduce radioactive waste.
Could you comment on that opportunity? In your presentation you talked about reducing and reusing waste coming out of the nuclear plants.
Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations, Bruce Power
Definitely. As I mentioned earlier, it's a good question. If we're going to fight climate change, if we're going to achieve net zero by 2050, we need every tool in the tool box. Therefore, we're thrilled to have partnered with a great company out of British Columbia, General Fusion, that is advancing what I call “21st century fusion technology”. We've entered into a partnership agreement with them in terms of engaging on technical resources. We obviously have a very strong, deep workforce, whether it's engineering or project management, all the types of skills you would need to advance a new technology.
This is really about trying to put another tool in the tool box in the fight against climate change. Do I believe nuclear is competing with fusion, or fusion is competing with nuclear, or frankly, we're competing with renewables? I don't. This was really more about saying as Canadians, how do we bring that technical know-how we have together to see what this is?
If somebody is going to develop fusion power, I want it to be Canadians. We can lead in these areas, because not only is there a climate-change imperative, but there's an economic imperative and a jobs imperative. I want those skills and those capabilities to stay here in Canada.
If I could be so bold, I want it to stay in Bruce, Grey and Huron Counties where I live, where I think this technology is. If we're going to build a commercial plant, let's put it in Bruce, Grey and Huron Counties.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Great. Thank you.
Having local universities working on that, such as McMaster and the partners that you have, and the University of Guelph—
Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations, Bruce Power
Sorry. Even more importantly, as a grad of the University of Guelph, that's right in our backyard. That's an institution that I would raise as well.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Terrific. I was just going to mention the University of Guelph, which won't come as a surprise to any of the other members of Parliament here.
The University of Guelph is looking at eDNA monitoring, the DNA monitoring of the biodiversity around nuclear storage—things like your plant, where we're looking at fish, changes in the environment around fish stocks, or changes in biodiversity. Part of the regulatory process is collecting data on impact. If we look at Chalk River or others, there's a very strong regulatory requirement to look at impact using such tools as eDNA.
Sharing that data is something that the University of Guelph has asked for. I had a recent conversation with the University of Guelph on this, and they're saying there's a lot of private data or data that's held by non-research institutes. Could you comment on the sharing of data with research institutes?
