Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

That's a very good question. First, the Senate committee on natural resources in 2002 looked into risk assessments at the CNSC and had a number of large criticisms around how they were done, so it's not specifically Greenpeace that has addressed this. They made a number of recommendations.

One of the biggest needs we have is, first, for transparency in getting these risk assessments. It's very difficult to get hold of one. These are basically what bound environmental assessments. They basically say any accident of over one-in-a-million chance is not credible. When I've asked for these from Ontario Power Generation or the CNSC, the response is generally no.

As for Greenpeace doing one, they're very expensive to do. These are called probabilistic risk assessments. They cost millions of dollars. What I think is most important is that we have transparency and perhaps have the ability of third-party experts who could look into and analyze these for uncertainties to improve them over time. That's what we currently don't have.

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

You're not suggesting, though, that the experts who have been retained by the association would risk their own integrity or their own licence to come up with a flawed assessment, are you?

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

Well, there are two things.

In terms of intentionally making a flawed assessment or intentionally omitting things, I will give you an example.

One of the biggest areas where the probability of an accident can occur is in terms of what's called external events—floods, earthquakes, erratic weather, terrorism.... Ontario Power Generation is currently doing an environmental assessment on Pickering B, which Greenpeace is following. The probabilistic risk assessment they have done for that environmental assessment, we have learned through access to information, specifically correspondence, did not include external events, even though it is widely regarded in the industry that this should be in such risk assessments, and the Senate committee report that I mentioned stated in the past that they should move towards that. They knowingly didn't put that in. Their response to CNSC staff when they noted that they had not included external events was that they had already finished the study, so they were not going to do it again.

I underline the point that we need more transparency to be able to look for these uncertainties, because certain things are often omitted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Stensil, and thank you, Mr. St. Amand.

Now we go to the Bloc Québécois for up to five minutes.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Thompson, the Government of Canada will pay approximately $520 million in the next five years to correct the mistakes of the past regarding radioactive contamination. Your municipality is probably concerned by this measure. This year, an extra $100 million was granted to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to develop the CANDU. Your municipality will host a nuclear power station, and you will have to increase safety by using firefighters or people who can administer first aid. A lot of expenses are incurred by a province or city that hosts a nuclear power station.

You gave us a very striking picture by saying that, for the City of Pickering, for example, $650 million would work out to compensation of $8,000 per person. You didn't provide a compensation figure, but, in your opinion, $650 million is not really enough.

Are you prepared to say that it is quite unfair that Canadians, through their taxes, pay the extra compensation in the event of a nuclear accident? What proposals do you have to make concerning the tribunal? That issue is a great concern for me, but we were unfortunately unable to take an in-depth look at the clauses of the bill with the officials.

If the municipality of Port Hope, for example, filed a claim for compensation with the tribunal for losses related to its water supply system or its public property, I don't know whether it would be allowed. Do you have any suggestions to make to the tribunal? You said it was independent, but do you think the municipalities might be entitled to compensation?

[Linda Thompson]

Thank you.

I would like to provide you with some information. The Municipality of Port Hope is one of the oldest nuclear communities in Canada, having had a facility--Cameco Corporation--which is a refinery, since the 1930s.

Currently, due to past business practices from the 1930s to the 1950s, we have material deposited throughout our urban area. In fact, my whole urban area is being decommissioned, so to speak. That process, which will also involve a small portion of the community of Clarington beside us, will cost the federal government $260 million, since it was originally a federal corporation.

Having said that, do I think $8,000 is not enough? As municipalities, we do not feel $650 million is sufficient in the unlikely event of an incident. Personally, I don't believe there should be a cap.

In regard to Canadians paying for that, I think the pool idea and the insurance are very important to the process so that it is not the responsibility of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments.

In regard to tribunal courts, my personal opinion would be that they should be at arm's length.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Ouellet, we have about a minute.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Thompson, Minister Lunn just told us that he will require the nuclear power stations to keep their nuclear waste on site for 30 years. The bill does not currently say whether insurance policies must be extended for the period of time when the very dangerous nuclear waste is on site.

Doesn't that concern you?

[Linda Thompson]

Perhaps, Mr. Chair, I could ask for clarification.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Does it concern you that nuclear waste might remain on site, in refrigerated pools, that it might be readily accessible to terrorists or that, in the event of an explosion, it might continue to cause substantial damage in the surrounding communities? Doesn't it concern you that insurance policies don't cover that period of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Ms. Thompson or Mr. Wu.

Mr. Wu, go ahead.

[Franklin Wu]

To answer your question with regard to the nuclear waste currently still on site in our Canadian nuclear power plants, our association has been working very closely with the NWMO, which is the agency established by the federal government a few years back to look after the long-term management of the nuclear waste issue. Our association is very engaged with the NWMO. We enjoy the dialogue. We want to make sure, as an association, that our host communities' interests are fully expressed to the NWMO to deal with that issue.

On the insurance side, obviously we know that a nuclear accident may occur in the future, we just don't know when. In that unlikely event, nuclear waste that is still on site is part and parcel of the entire equation in addition to the existing nuclear generation facility. So in our view, anything within the parameters of a nuclear facility should be covered by the insurance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Wu.

Ms. Bell, for up to five minutes.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. This is a very important issue for our country.

You've raised some concerns, which I think a lot of Canadians have, with regard to the compensation. I don't know what house prices are in Pickering or any of the other communities. I would imagine they're similar to average prices across the country: very high. So $8,000 per person really isn't a lot when you have to vacate your home and lose all your possessions and everything. It's really not much.

We've negotiated trade deals with the Americas, and with the U.S. especially, that say that if we make a law that hinders your ability to make a profit, or hinders your business, then we're liable for compensation for future lost revenues.

I'm curious as to whether you think that should be built into a compensation law. You mentioned, Ms. Thompson, that the negative perception around a nuclear incident would scare away business for years to come, maybe forever. If you had a business and it was shut down, you lost your revenue, there's nothing to compensate you for that lost revenue for the future. I'm just wondering, if it's good enough for trade deals, why isn't it good enough for Canadian businesses?

[Linda Thompson]

That is one of the issues involved in that economic loss.

I know of what I speak. Port Hope has been in the news lately, with some very negative nuclear issues with regard to the release of a study. In the matter of a week we had businesses identify that they didn't want to look at businesses in our community. People walked away from housing. It does have an impact on business. If there were other legislative pieces that could assist in that, it would be helpful.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Sure.

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

One comment I would make on this is on the SARS impact for Toronto. I didn't see any mention of.... Industries such as tourism would be greatly affected if there were an accident at the Pickering nuclear station. Even if it was a near miss, it would become known worldwide. There's probably no ability in the bill to deal with that. So that's another consideration to make when discussing economic impacts.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Stensil, the Canadian Nuclear Association has done a review of the tritium hazard report that I think you put out in June of this year. Could you comment on that review? You've probably read it by now. I wondered if you have anything to say about that report.

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

What I would say in regard to the report is that after we released it, the provincial Minister of the Environment referred it to the Ontario drinking water standards committee, which is currently undertaking a review of tritium standards in Ontario, which is exactly the issue we raised in the report. The author has met with that committee and will hopefully be meeting with them again.

At the same time, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has undertaken a review of tritium standards in Canada because of concerns raised by the public. There is as well the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, which makes the recommendation of again increasing the dose factor on tritium, so we think our report is quite in line with what's going on worldwide in terms of science showing there is a greater risk from tritium than previously thought.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

You mentioned that the period for compensating victims needs to be longer. Proving causation is a huge issue; we see that with asbestos and other nuclear exposure around the world. I don't know how long it takes in some cases, but I understand it's many years.

Do you think there should be any cut-off, or it should just be open-ended?

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

I don't think there should be a cap. We're still learning about the health impacts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as from Chernobyl, and intergenerational impacts are just that--they're intergenerational, so we won't necessarily see them show up. It will take a great deal of study to trace it back to what the original impacts are at the population level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Bell.

We will go now to the government. Go ahead, Mr. Harris, up to five minutes.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presentations.

Mr. Stensil, I listened during your presentation, and you kept going back to using the term “a terrorist attack”. God forbid that ever happens, but if I understood correctly, it seemed you were thinking that if a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility took place, the facility itself--not the government--should be required to pay a large part of the liability. I think I understood you to say something like that. Am I correct?

[Shawn-Patrick Stensil]

I didn't state an opinion on that per se.

If my memory serves, there has been a change since 2001 in European conventions regarding responsibility for terrorist attacks. I'd have to confirm that.

My point was that under the Nuclear lLability Act as proposed, nuclear operators would not be responsible for the economic costs of such an incident. My point was to say that if Canadians are then going to assume those impacts, we need a forum under which we can evaluate them and have a discussion of whether they're socially acceptable and of other methods we could use to mitigate that risk.

What I proposed was that an amendment or a change in regulation should be made under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to require terrorist incidents and the environmental impacts to be evaluated, because that is not the case now in Canada. What I noted is that in the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that the NRC must require an evaluation of environmental impacts in licensing new facilities.

An example raised by Mr. Ouellet would be a terrorist attack at the dry storage site for waste, which right now is frankly not very well protected, because most of the facilities were built prior to September 11. In licensing a new facility in the United States, they've had to evaluate what those costs would be. That gives the public an understanding of what the hazard is and of whether it's socially acceptable. It also allows a forum for discussing what we could do to necessarily mitigate this environmental impact--do we make these buildings more robust?

That was what my comment was.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

All right. You also were quite critical of the fact that the Nuclear Liability Act had not been reviewed for many, many years, as you put it. Actually, in your presentation you weren't happy about a number of things. But considering that the previous governments did not respond to a review of the Nuclear Liability Act and now it's happening, at least does that give you some sort of comfort? Although you may not agree with some parts of the bill--that's why you're here, to make some suggestions--you must at least be comforted in some way that finally this government is doing a review of the act and is updating it and making some changes that, given the professional advice it's had in the process, are making some changes to the act. You must be pleased at least about that, that it's being worked on.

Thank you.