Yes.
Evidence of meeting #14 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was situation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #14 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was situation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo
Yes.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd St. Amand Liberal Brant, ON
You're saying pretty conclusively today that with respect to assessing the risk in November and December at that Chalk River facility, you are right and they are wrong. Correct?
12:50 p.m.
Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo
Let me help you clarify by noting that the fact that the risk is low is known to CNSC. It is actually part of the safety analysis report and the safety envelope of the plant that was licensed by the CNSC. The CNSC is absolutely aware of the point I'm making, and it is a very low risk. That is the basis for the continued operation of the nuclear reactor. To help you, what I've tried to characterize in my remarks is, let's make a clear understanding between what is a substantive nuclear safety question versus what is a licensing condition type of interpretation. I think it is in the latter part that things went awry.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd St. Amand Liberal Brant, ON
So simply put, Dr. Nathwani, if you had been president of the commission, as a for instance, there would have been no crisis?
12:50 p.m.
Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo
You're certainly giving me a level of power that I'm not used to as a humble professor.
But I am clear that if I had had access...and by the way, I don't have access to all the internal information; I follow what's in the paper. If I had had the kind of information and the benefit of the information, and the discussions of all these timelines and the things the way they were emerging, I would have said, gentlemen, there is a better way for an answer here, and it goes something to this effect. If you say to me that first I need to have an earthquake occur, and then I need to have a whole series of multiple failures happen before the effectiveness of whether this pump is connected or not connected, and so on...and you're down into the milliseconds of radiation on a hypothetical basis to some individual that could occur under this scenario, and imminent harm to lives of Canadians from the medical need perspective here.... To me, the determination is so simple that I'm puzzled as to why they couldn't get there.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. St. Amand. Your time is up.
Dr. Nathwani, had you finished answering?
12:50 p.m.
Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo
If I had been able to make a determination, the crisis would not have occurred, if that is where you were headed.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you very much.
We now go to the Bloc Québécois, to Madame DeBellefeuille, for two and half minutes.
12:50 p.m.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Messrs. Malkoske, McInnes and O'Brien, I can't say, as a member of Parliament and a citizen, that your testimony has reassured me on the management of the crisis, from an organizational standpoint or from that of the communication between the authorities concerned and the medical community. What we've heard today is quite appalling. Very few forecasts and communication plans are being prepared, despite the fact that we're this dependent on reactors.
My question is for MDS Nordion's managers.
A lot of questions are being asked in the media about the MAPLE reactor. It's said that there will be major problems in the future. Some even say it will never see the light of day. The fact is that the Chalk River reactor is 52 years old. Even if upgrades are done, it's still old and we'll have to replace it. However, in view of what's available, its replacement is far from certain.
Our dependence on that reactor is now more than confirmed. What will happen if the reactor breaks down for an extended period of time and the MAPLE reactor isn't ready? Would you be able to offset the shortage as efficiently as in the last crisis? This is quite disturbing for Quebeckers and Canadians.
12:55 p.m.
Vice President, Strategic Technologies and Global Logistics, MDS Nordion
Thank you very much, and frankly we share your concerns.
What I've tried to portray today is that the global isotope supply situation has a capacity limitation. The reactors that we talk about internationally are all in the fifty-year vintage, and there are no other new reactors coming online, other than in the case of the investment that Canada has made to date in the MAPLE reactors. So what this has done is highlight the fragility, if you will, of the supply chain of isotopes to Canadians and to others.
We think, frankly, that it is absolutely paramount to have a national isotope supply strategy for Canada. We think there needs to be a clear consideration of what can be done to ensure the operability and licensability of the NRU supply stream beyond 2011, which is its current licensed time. Furthermore—
12:55 p.m.
Bloc
12:55 p.m.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Malkoske, you say “there needs to be.” However, I read committee minutes dating back to 2005 in which it was said that it would be necessary to establish protocols and consider national strategies. But our reactor has been extended and extended for 17 years now. That's a fact. How can you say today that “there needs to be” something, when those protocols, that national strategy, should have been put in place a long time ago? This situation is very troubling.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Madame DeBellefeuille, your time is more than up.
Ms. Bell, go ahead, please.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We're hearing that this crisis didn't necessarily need to occur. There was a breakdown in communications, and it was not necessarily just because the reactor shut down. There was an extended shutdown in the past, and it was handled.
I'm curious to know what the nature of that extended shutdown was. Why did it go down, and for how long, and what kind of processes were in place at that time to mitigate a crisis, and why weren't those processes used in this instance?
12:55 p.m.
Vice President, Strategic Technologies and Global Logistics, MDS Nordion
Let me try to address that.
The shutdown that we talked about last year was in fact a planned shutdown. We knew it would be extended longer than normal. It was for ten days rather than the normal five. There is sufficient inventory to go beyond five days. As I mentioned earlier, we have inventory that can take us to about seven days, and so we have a three-day gap now that we're trying to address through this situation. During that time, because we knew well in advance, we could go out and talk to other producers and get them to get their reactors up to capacity. Nonetheless—
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Catherine Bell NDP Vancouver Island North, BC
Before you go on, can I just ask, then, whether there has ever been an unscheduled shutdown that's been extended, in any kind of instance similar to this?
12:55 p.m.
Vice President, Strategic Technologies and Global Logistics, MDS Nordion
There has been, but there have always been other reactors available. NRU had the situation many years ago where the NRX reactor was operating at that point in time and had capacity.
I'll go back to the 10-day window. I really want to finish this point, if I may, please.
Even at that point in time, these other reactors around the world could not fill the gap. They went up to capacity. There was a shortage. It wasn't as severe, because it didn't go on as long, but the radiopharmaceutical manufacturers were already reducing their supply to customers. So there is a global issue here. There's a global reactor capacity issue.
We're dismayed, as much as you are, that things haven't progressed. We really would emphasize that this issue around NRU operability, and getting a strategy for the MAPLE reactors, is so essential and so critical.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Ms. Bell.
Ms. Gallant, go ahead, please. You have two and half minutes.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Dr. O'Brien, Dr. Nathwani mentioned that the existence of that health board would have been helpful in the CNSC's ability to balance the risk. Now, at what point was that health council disbanded? Was it after the CNSC was formed? Please elaborate on the acrimony to which you previously referred.
1 p.m.
Past President, Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine
I don't have the exact date. It happened after the new administration, Linda Keen, took over from CNSC.
There were two changes that occurred in the arrangements. One was the disbandment of the medical advisory board—the health board, as you would call it. The second change was in the licensing within the nuclear medicine labs. Previously there was a requirement to have a Royal College-certified nuclear medicine specialist identified as the monitoring physician. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission abolished that requirement, and it was left up to the licensee to appoint someone, who might or might not have the expertise in nuclear medicine to be a monitoring physician.
So you had changes at the national level: medical interaction was no longer required, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission isolated itself from medical input. There was also a change at the local level: it was possible to have monitoring physicians at the local nuclear medicine lab who were not Royal College-trained or experienced in nuclear medicine. Most hospitals ignored that stipulation and continued to have Royal College-certified physicians involved. But it creates an atmosphere. We are the experts in the field. We spend years being trained as radiation safety officers and maintaining the health of individual patients, workers, and the public.
Some discussion on this occurred during the new administration at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. I do not have that information in detail. But according to Dr. Albert Driedger, who was involved, it was very testy and there was some concern that the reputations of the nuclear medicine physicians at that committee were actually damaged.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Do you know why the new CNSC administration did not want to have the advantage of the knowledge and input of this health council?
1 p.m.
Past President, Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine
The only information Dr. Driedger gave me was that it was felt that the medical advisory commission was biased, and that its opinion was not apt to be in line with the philosophy of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.