Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

A shortage, okay.

Mr. Nathwani, I was reading in your resume that as part of your judicial hearings and regulatory developments, you led the Canadian utilities submission to the House of Commons on Bill C-23, which actually established the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

It was interesting to read your quotes in The Globe and Mail:

The decision to rush through legislation to overrule the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and restart the...reactor to resume production...could not have been more timely, apt, relevant and correct. The ability of all parties in the House of Commons to take necessary action is...in sharp contrast to the CNSC's failure to evaluate the broader consequences to “life safety” of Canadians.

I have a question on that. The CNSC, when we were debating this in Parliament, not only actively opposed, but they really didn't want to go anywhere with this legislation. Why do you think we were right on this issue? But more importantly, as part of your risk management background, what kinds of things should CNSC have done, rather than just take this oppositional approach?

[Dr. Jatin Nathwani]

I would like to confirm that, yes, I was involved. When I was working with the utilities at that time, I was the chair of the group, and I was fully aware of all the amendments to the then Atomic Energy Control Regulations and the changes that were made...that ultimately became the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. So I'm familiar with the puts and takes around that. There was then even a desire to begin to broaden, if you wish, the concepts around risks and benefits and how we ought to manage this in a way that provides a fuller picture.

In those discussions at that time, the commission, or the AECB, did not want this particular stipulation put into the act, as it were, but they said, how about if we write a policy that would get to the intent of what the desire here was, that you will do a reasonable balancing of the issues at hand. Therefore, the policy two-for-two that has been written was really part of that sort of trade-off, that the commission would write a policy and subject its decisions to the consideration of the costs and benefits in its decision-making process.

I am not close to that any longer. I understand that there is not much credence given to it. It's not pursued with the degree of rigour and completeness that I would wish, hence my suggestion that perhaps this unfortunate situation has taught us a lesson. If there was something firmly embedded within the act that forced that kind of determination, it would bring much clearer thinking to the fore in terms of how you make complex decisions, how you deal with uncertainty, how you look at both sides of the equation on risk and so on, and you would get the kind of decision that Parliament made in a real hurry, which is to me very surprising: that implicitly, without doing the calculations, they managed to get to it, which the commission couldn't,because they said it's one or the other licence condition.

So that's the reason I'm proposing that something to this effect be put into the act, in the hope that it would force a deeper, more mature, more reasonable, and stronger process.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Just as a follow-up to that, you did make a statement that the risk involved here was so infinitesimally small—not zero, but low—that I would have thought that prudent people, wise people, would have thought this through and not come to the impasse they did.

So in your view, given your situation in risk management, even considering the current act, this was not a prudent decision on the part of the regulator.

[Dr. Jatin Nathwani]

That is correct.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you.

To Dr. O'Brien, I really thank you for your testimony on rural areas. As an MP who represents a rural riding in New Brunswick, I do understand the challenges. I know that Moncton Hospital in New Brunswick, as well as River Valley Health, ran into some serious challenges with this.

I also appreciate the fact that you clearly articulated in your testimony some of the comments that have come out as to why certain things like CT scans are not replacements for some of the challenges we ran into.

With regard to the action we took as parliamentarians together in this, do you have any doubts that if we had not taken that action, the health impact on Canadians would have been tremendous going on another few weeks?

[Dr. Christopher O'Brien]

I have no doubts at all. In my own environment at Renfrew General Hospital, even before the act was passed we were having significant problems in maintaining acute life-threatening situations and assessing acute life-threatening situations. We were very concerned that within the next couple of days we would not even be able to offer services.

As mentioned, Pembroke Regional was already closed for periodic days even before the act was passed. Stratford General was closed for a few days even before the act was passed.

We at Renfrew General were able to balance it out a bit better because we had contracts with two suppliers. If one supplier didn't have some isotopes, we'd call the other supplier to try to get something. But a few days before the act was passed, our supplies were drying up. We understand that this was secondary to the reactor in South Africa, which was closed down for regularly scheduled maintenance. That's when we really got into problems. Even if we were getting supplies again, we would have been going back to the continued rationing we were facing.

So without a doubt we were teetering on the brink of disaster.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

So if we were teetering on the brink of disaster, the way all the timelines are working out, and from the evidence given by folks from MDS Nordion, it would seem that we were going to be in a situation where it was going to be at least the early part of January before we could have gotten anything if we hadn't started this reactor.

What do you contemplate the impact would have been if it had been January 1 before this had started up?

[Dr. Christopher O'Brien]

What I was seeing locally was that things were getting worse on a daily basis. Continuing with that was an unacceptable option for the health of the patients with whom I was dealing.

So...no option.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Allen, your time is up.

We'll now go to the second round of questioning, starting with the official opposition.

Mr. St. Amand, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Malkoske, I just want to understand the chronology here. You were advised on November 21 that the Chalk River reactor would not be starting up. Is that correct?

[Grant Malkoske]

That's correct.

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

And you were advised of that by whom?

[Grant Malkoske]

We were advised of that by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

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

That prompted you to call a meeting the next morning, on November 22.

[Grant Malkoske]

In fact it was a regularly scheduled meeting that we had on November 22.

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

But certainly this topic came up.

[Grant Malkoske]

Absolutely.

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

It was probably at the top of the agenda, I dare say.

[Grant Malkoske]

Yes, it was a high agenda item.

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

Of course it was.

This was your regularly scheduled meeting with AECL.

[Grant Malkoske]

That's correct.

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

And so urgent was the situation from your perspective, and I presume AECL's, that an afternoon meeting was convened. Is that correct?

[Grant Malkoske]

That is correct. It was a pre-arranged meeting that had been scheduled, and we went to that meeting. Similar information was conveyed at that meeting.

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

And officials from Natural Resources Canada were at the afternoon meeting on November 22.

[Grant Malkoske]

That's right.