Environment Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 15 seconds, please.

[Mollie Johnson]

With respect to the part we are accountable for, the policy review, we're in the process of doing that work now. The IAEA will be back in 2023 and we look forward to being able to talk to them about the work we have done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Perfect.

Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Velshi, you had mentioned the CNSC framework was also aligned with international standards and best practices. And, of course, we heard testimony from Mr. Dermarkar saying the International Energy Agency wrote a country report for Canada that “encouraged Canada to help the rest of the world pursue nuclear through both SMRs and CANDU technology, because they see Canada as a tier-one nuclear nation.”

Could you talk a bit more about where Canada might be able to take the lead on innovation in nuclear energy? I know there was a discussion earlier about the deep geological depositories and the fact there are best practices internationally.

We've had discussions on glaciation and so on. I know that sounds farfetched. However, if you're talking about something that's tens of thousands of years down the road, you have to think about that. We've done so many things in Canada that are world class, whether it be our renewable resources or our nonrenewable resources. I wonder if you could just speak to where we actually lead in nuclear energy in the world.

[Rumina Velshi]

Thank you very much for that question. I will start and then I'll get Mr. Jammal to add to it.

Maybe I'll just start with SMRs since your question began with that. You know that OPG has made a decision on building an SMR at the Darlington site. This is going to be the first grid level SMR in the western world in a G7 country.

Canada is leading that, and the CNSC as a regulator becomes the lead regulator for the world. There are other countries looking at Canada to see how we are licensing this new technology and how they can benefit from that—how they can piggyback on that. We have collaboration agreements with the U.S. regulator as well as the U.K. regulator, so that we can work jointly and share our efforts together.

Certainly on the SMR front we are taking the lead. We invariably get invited to lead many of the international fora on that. There are many other areas. Maybe I'll ask Mr. Jammal to give you a couple more examples.

[Ramzi Jammal]

You asked about the lead. At the last IRRS mission we did receive a good practice rating under the international peer review. That means other member states should take into consideration the success of the Canadian model from a regulatory perspective.

I personally lead many missions internationally as the lead under the IEA, and I can attest to you that many of the countries that we evaluate look to Canada with respect to our advancement with our regulatory framework and the independence of the commission. We have quite a bit of collaboration internationally for the existing fleet and for any new innovation that's coming across.

We collaborate. As a matter of fact we have to turn away certain regulators because our capacity is limited. We take pride in the advances we have in place, and we'll continue to lead. We are the lead regulator of the G7 currently that is evaluating SMR on Canadian territory. We do not work in isolation. We work in collaboration internationally and nationally.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

Of course, Ms. Velshi, you had also mentioned that, for any type of energy source, you would have to be looking at it from cradle to grave and to take a look at the full life cycle. It doesn't matter whether it's solar, wind, hydro or oil and gas, as everybody has to take a look at the realities of the type of energy they have and what they're going to do with it once it gets to the stage where it has to be re-purposed.

Just quickly, Ms. Johnson, you had spoken about international standards of the draft policies and where you're going to be. I only have about 30 seconds left, but I wonder if you could fill us in a little bit. You've heard what CNSR has said. Could you just give us a bit of an update?

[Mollie Johnson]

On the policy?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Yes.

[Mollie Johnson]

Thank you very much. We launched the revised paper. It is on our website right now. We're really looking to focus around six key elements of the policy; to provide greater clarity on the elaboration on the roles, responsibilities and leadership on radioactive waste management; and to set out our direction. We want to focus on the prevention and minimization of waste so that it's managed to protect people and the environment. We underscore our commitment to UNDRIP through waste management.

You're stopping me. Thank you,Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I hate to do that. It hurts me more than it hurts you; believe me.

We'll go to Ms. Thompson.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. It's been an incredibly interesting study, with so much information and so many perspectives. I'm really interested to ask fairly straightforward questions to whomever wants to jump in and answer the simple questions that I'm still struggling to find some kind of a consensus on. First, how much radioactive waste do we have in Canada?

[Mollie Johnson]

Jim, do you want to jump in on that?

[Jim Delaney]

If we're talking about the different classes of radioactive waste, we're talking about 12,700 cubic metres of high level radioactive waste. The vast majority of our radioactive waste in Canada—when you're excluding uranium, mines and mills tailings—is low level radioactive waste. To break it down in percentages, 0.4% of our waste is high level radioactive waste, about 0.6% or 0.5% is intermediate level waste, and then the 99% remaining is low level radioactive waste. I hope that helps clarify.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It does, thank you.

Again, I have a very straightforward question for any of the witnesses who want to answer this, is radioactive waste safely managed from your perspective within Canada?

[Rumina Velshi]

Maybe I will start, and others can jump in afterwards.

I believe it is managed extremely well. We have the best international practices here, and as I said earlier, our track record speaks for itself.

[Ramzi Jammal]

If I may add, Mr. Chair, to Madam Velshi's comments with regard to our record, international peer review, taken on from contracting parties—which is the convention and the treaty—learn from Canadian regulatory oversight and the management of the waste.

I would like to inform the committee of the regulatory powers we have. We shut down facilities. We bring them before the commission. Anyone who's not behaving and meeting our requirements will have their operations shut down and licensing actions taken to make sure that our requirements and safety are maintained at all times.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. To lead from that, with the level of government oversight and regulatory bodies, why is there still so much of a disconnect between the information around waste management and the perception around the safety of the practices in Canada?

[Rumina Velshi]

Again, maybe I'll start and my colleagues will want to join in.

There is genuine, real fear. A lot has to do with waste and how the public media may have presented waste. You just need to look at The Simpsons, and you see these cans with green oozy stuff coming out of them. Some of it is that.

Some is real, particularly because they say that it is tens of thousands of years that this stuff could be around. That rightfully scares people. As I said earlier, I don't think we have done a good enough job explaining what the risks are and how well it is managed. Even in the worst-case scenario, what's the worst that can happen?

You had an earlier witness who talked about how Mother Earth has actually managed radioactive waste so well, and if the committee has not looked at the Oklo situation in Gabon, I will point out that there was a natural fission reactor two billion years ago that operated for tens of thousands of years. The waste from that is still intact; it has not moved at all. The science, the evidence, is there that it can be managed well. We just have not been able to do a good job in explaining that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 30 seconds, please, Ms. Thompson.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

For someone from the department—if I can get this in—how does the government make the information and decisions about radioactive waste available to Canadians?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Answer very quickly, please.

[Mollie Johnson]

We do have some information like the national inventory report and other pieces, which are available on our website. With respect to the radioactive waste review, for example, every submission and all of the summaries, what we've heard, and reports are are all available. We'd be happy to provide those links to the committee if that would be helpful for you to navigate through the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much. This has been an excellent panel. We've learned a lot, and have gathered a lot of input for our study.

I'd like to thank the panellists for making themselves available in the evening after we had to cancel the meeting about 10 days ago.

We'll pause there, and we'll bring in our new witnesses and continue. We have until 8:30, and then we have to stop because there's a lot of pressure on House resources.

Thank you very much again to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'd like to welcome our witnesses for the second panel. We have Chief Duncan Malcolm Michano from the Biigtigong Nishnaabeg First Nation; from the Department of the Environment, we have Mary Taylor, director general, environmental protection operations; and from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, we have Steve Chapman, director general of national programs.

We have time for three-minute opening statements. We'll start with you, Chief Michano, for three minutes, please.