Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

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

I know I'm asking you to speculate, but as a former AECL chairperson, I think your experience is useful for us, because we've been unable, to date, to get the actual chairman of the time.

Mr. Malkoske told us about the meeting he held with AECL on the shortage of isotopes. Would the chairman have been involved in that?

By the way, it's interesting to note that it is reported that Mr. Burns also briefed the minister on November 22. I don't know if that's a coincidence or not, but it was reported that he had briefed the minister on November 22.

As a chairperson, would you have been notified of this type of urgent meeting and requirement?

[Jean-Pierre Soublière]

It's pure speculation.

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

I understand that.

[Jean-Pierre Soublière]

I would assume so, and I would have hoped so.

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

Let's be hypothetical again: if you were the chair and you were notified, would you have called the minister, the minister's office, and notified him?

[Jean-Pierre Soublière]

I might have started the plant myself.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jean-Pierre Soublière]

I think I would have done what I felt was important to do, as soon as possible. That's what I believe I would have done.

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

I know my colleagues think it's funny, but hopefully the minister will answer these questions about why he wasn't telling people that he was notified about this incident.

I want to get back to Mr. Malkoske about the timeline. It's strange to us here, and we are learning for the first time, I think, that you knew this could be extremely catastrophic for the industry on November 22, and you held meetings.

Whom did you follow up with in Natural Resources?

[Grant Malkoske]

First of all, let's start right from the beginning of the discussion on November 22. To go to the point—and excuse me for not understanding the protocol—I'd like it read into the record that the three major people who were represented at the meeting on the afternoon of November 22 were Brian McGee from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Sylvana Guindon from Natural Resources Canada, and me representing MDS Nordion. There were other people there—frankly, I don't remember their names—but I think these are the keys you need for this discussion.

Throughout this whole process—and at this point in time, I went on business to Australia—there were a number of discussions going on in the week of November 28 that were trying to understand where the hot points would be to get this reactor started up. Certainly we were in contact with Atomic Energy of Canada. They were the ones we were in contact with daily to understand this situation. That was our primary government contact.

Our view is that they report through to the Minister of Natural Resources Canada. What their communication protocol is we do not understand or know completely, but they are our conduit through this. We would have assumed that the minister or minister's staff, or somebody at Natural Resources, would be aware of the ongoing situation, the flux that was going on and its restart dates.

Going back to the question that was answered earlier about what we knew and when we knew it, we knew at the time of our November 30 press release that it could be mid-December if this one-pump option were to be implemented and the NRU restarted. By December 5, the landscape had changed a bit. It now looked as though it would be a two-pump option that was going to be required to restart the reactor, and that it therefore wouldn't happen until January. That's what is recorded in our press release.

That's the best information we had in terms of what would be done and when.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Malkoske, and thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

Now we go to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to clear some things up for Mr. Alghabra, since he seems to be confused.

The timeline that has been laid out today is exactly the same one that was laid out by the minister. It's in the testimony he gave here, in which he talks about November 18 as when the reactor was shut down and November 22 as when AECL sent a brief e-mail to his departmental official. Also on that day, during a regular working-level meeting, AECL, MDS Nordion, and an official from Natural Resources Canada met. I assume that's the meeting you've been talking about this morning.

He talks about getting an e-mail on Thursday, November 29, and on November 30 getting an e-mail from AECL on the implications of what is described as a temporary shutdown of medical isotope supply. In that e-mail, AECL stated that they intended to restart the NRU by early December.

All that is consistent with what I think has been heard today. I heard you say, Mr. Malkoske, that even by November 30 there was still no clear timeline on when the NRU would restart.

The thing that's encouraging to me is that everyone has been on the same page, and that obviously the information was given to people here early, and they can be confident of that.

I want to ask a couple of questions. One of them is this: is it correct that there was an extended shutdown in 2006—a ten-day shutdown that was extended longer than a normal shutdown would be?

I guess, if you have to look around, that obviously it was handled well; it wasn't an emergency situation. Everyone reacted to it, handled it, and moved on from there. Is that correct?

[Grant Malkoske]

That is correct. It was well planned well in advance, and it went off very smoothly, frankly.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay. And I think it's reasonable to see that well into this one there would be that same expectation, that there was going to be nothing unusual taking place here, and it was only around the end of November that people realized that this was not a normal situation.

[Grant Malkoske]

Yes, frankly, it wasn't until November 21, when we were informed that this was not going to restart, that something was unusual and we weren't sure when it could go back up again.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

As you pointed out, even at the end of November you still thought that was possible in early December.

Mr. Nathwani, you made some recommendations here, and one of them was to have a separation of function within the CNSC, if I have it down correctly, between the president as chief of staff and the chair of the commission as a tribunal. I would like you to talk first about what you see as the conflict in this situation. What was the conflict that took place? And is this adequate to fix this situation?

[Dr. Jatin Nathwani]

It is but one suggestion, and I put it in front of the committee as perhaps one way to do it. But let me be helpful, if I can.

What we have is a situation wherein you have vested within the authority of the president of the CNSC decision-making authority. Of course, she's the executive of the staff as well. When you get into a kind of situation where there is a dispute between the perspectives of CNSC staff and the licensee, let's say, on substantive matters, on technical matters, you may need to find a clear or objective or different perspective that might help you get out of this sort of impasse. If the authorities were separated, that is, if the chair of the CNSC--of the adjudicative tribunal, if you wish--were separate from the staff and the staff influence through the office of the president, perhaps that might be a way to get out of such an impasse.

It's just a suggestion.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Malkoske, would this be an improvement, given that you have relations with AECL and CNSC? Would this improve the situation?

[Grant Malkoske]

I can't comment specifically on AECL and CNSC, although I would reiterate Mr. Nathwani's point that I think, generally, industry has expressed a concern about the separation of mandates.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay. Maybe that actually ties into this as well.

AECL had made a complaint that there was really no transparent decision-making process that they were able to access in this whole situation. Do you have a comment on that, Mr. Nathwani? One of your recommendations seemed to be that we need to bring more transparency to this.

[Dr. Jatin Nathwani]

I am somewhat familiar with the licensing process and how some of these technical issues and debates unfold between the experts within the licensing groups and within CNSC. Again, not to impugn anyone's motives, but people do come to different conclusions on these matters. If there were some way to resolve these matters, a technical determination of the differences and what is the appropriate perspective, either through a mediation process or through some other process, it would be helpful.

The process right now, as it stands, is so unclear, so befuddled with the number of licensing conditions, that even the licensee often doesn't know what is a requirement and what is not. For that matter, the CNSC staff tend to forget what it was that they had asked. So there is a great deal of confusion and lack of communication and so on, which led to this particular scenario. It's ever present for all the other aspects of nuclear regulation in Canada.

The point I'm trying to make is that if that could all be brought out with a certain degree of clarity for both parties, it would be particularly helpful, and it would perhaps prevent this sort of impasse from coming to pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

We have time for about two and a half minutes for each party in the final round, starting with Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Dr., Nathwani, Ms. Keen's leadership or management style has been described as collaborative. The very clear impression I've formed is that she is not overbearing, and in fact, decisions made by the commission were in fact decisions made by the commission.

How many members are there in the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Doctor? Are you aware of the number?

[Dr. Jatin Nathwani]

I believe it's five, but I could be off by a factor of one or two. There are five members of the commission, I believe.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

To the best of your knowledge, those are professional, well-qualified people to sit on such an important commission?