Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 16th, 2008

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That is absolutely correct.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Okay.

Now, Mr. Minister, your government has put together some supplementary estimates. There was a $520 million five-year plan to deal with health, safety, and environmental priorities.

Does any of that money have to do with safety upgrades? Would that be a judgment call of AECL? Are there specific concerns in that area that have not been looked at from other reports in other times, in other places?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much.

In the last fiscal year, 2007-2008, there was $103.7 million in the original estimates, plus an additional $108 million in the supplementary A estimates. A total of $323 million last year alone went to AECL, and $250 million of this was dedicated to the Chalk River laboratories. At no point in time—

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

So $250 million in upgrades specifically for this area--infrastructure, safety, etc.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Yes. That's correct.

There were a number of issues that were dealt with, everything from legacy liabilities to regulatory health and safety issues, and there was additional money for the new ACR-1000, for the development of that technology, as well as other funds. It's really important to note that at no point were there ever any funding issues with respect to doing upgrades or any work on the NRU reactor.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

This is not at all a funding question whatsoever.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

The situation surrounding the isotopes has absolutely nothing to do with funding. That is true.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Mr. Trost and Mr. Minister.

We now go to Mr. Alghabra from the Liberal Party.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, it's clear that you are working really hard to cover for AECL senior management, because they fall under your jurisdiction and you know you're ultimately responsible.

The more you highlight the urgency of the medical isotope, the more you clearly highlight your incompetence in not knowing what has happened over the last year and a half. And you admitted that the NRU had 50% of the international and domestic markets. You should have known about this. This was within your ministerial jurisdiction.

We now have the Auditor General's report. In the cover letter it says:

...it is our view that this report contains information that should be brought to the attention of the Minister of Natural Resources.

Minister, we have a quote from you, from November 22, in front of our committee:

The NRU reactor there produces medical isotopes. There are some health and safety issues there that have been overlooked for some time. They require some funds to meet those regulations, and as a government we have to provide the resources to do that. They've been ignored for a long time.... Obviously they meet minimum safety standards, but they need to become compliant with other health and safety standards, and we have to address that.

We have Mr. Burns, who was appointed by you and who is a former Alliance fundraiser, saying he briefed you on this matter on November 22. He says he also submitted his resignation on November 29 in frustration because of your inaction. We also know that you left AECL without a CEO for at least a year.

There were ample opportunities for you, Minister, to act within 18 months to prevent this problem from happening. Your plea of ignorance is not an excuse. You should have known, Minister; this was within your ministerial jurisdiction. It's even worse if you knew and didn't do anything, because it's negligence.

Minister, how can you explain, knowing how serious the production of isotopes was? How can you claim that you didn't know until November 4, even though you had such ample opportunity to do something about it? We have much evidence to tell us that you knew about it or you were briefed on it.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me address a number of assertions that are completely false.

First of all, number one, I was not briefed on November 22 at all. In fact, the department received a brief e-mail--it was four lines long--advising that the scheduled maintenance shutdown would be extended, possibly into December.

With respect to the point that there was no CEO, this is not true, Mr. Chair. In fact, the CEO had retired, and during the interim, until we appointed a new CEO, there was an acting CEO in place.

Mr. Chair, with respect to Mr. Burns' retirement, Mr. Burns conducted himself in an able manner. In fact, he had indicated his intentions to me, I believe, in early November--that his intentions were to retire. Again, there was no connection.

With respect to the Auditor General's report identifying...and as my testimony before committee shows, it is absolutely true that there are issues at Chalk River. There are health and safety and regulatory concerns at Chalk River, and they have been identified for some time. That is why we have more than doubled the amount of funding to AECL for Chalk River to begin dealing with these issues, which have been neglected for literally over a decade. We are putting these funds in to have these.

I want to stress that at no point--at no point--were any of these issues surrounding the NRU reactor or any shortage of funds. There is no way that any of this is connected at all.

I appreciate that the member, for his own reasons, is trying to make the connections, but they are simply not true.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You have about a minute, Mr. Alghabra.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, again I think your plea of ignorance is not acceptable here. The interesting part is you're blaming an independent quasi-judicial body over whom you have no authority, but you have yet to do anything with AECL because you know that if you put the blame on AECL senior management, you are accepting responsibility yourself.

By the way, I had two calls from two separate employees of AECL. They told me the morale at AECL is low. They told me that the government has been neglecting serious issues at AECL.

Minister, you need to accept that responsibility. When you talk about holding people to account, why don't you start with yourself first? Why don't you accept responsibility that your inaction has forced Parliament to intervene? Your inaction to resolve this issue has forced Parliament to pass a law. If you had acted sooner, we wouldn't have had a shortage of isotopes and we would have been still in compliance with the nuclear safety regulator on the standard that is accepted. And let me tell you, if there is a regulator that I expect to adhere to the letter of the law, it is the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Minister, your inaction has put us in this position. It's unfortunate that you blame someone else for your failures.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chairman, let me respond.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Minister, go ahead.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me respond firstly by saying it was precisely the action of our government that potentially prevented people from dying from an unnecessary shortage of radioisotopes that never had to happen. It never had to happen.

Nobody in my department or myself could ever have anticipated or forecasted or known that we were going to be in a situation in early December where there would be this dispute between AECL and CNSC, and we took the action we did. I believe we took the absolute correct approach in all of our decisions until it culminated in an act before Parliament. That was the only way to resolve this matter.

I believe and our government believes that the former president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission did not fulfill her executive responsibilities in that position, and therefore we have acted as we move forward to bring in new leadership, as we have done with AECL.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

To the government side again. Ms. Gallant, five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister, the reason the NRU could not be restarted in December before both levels of Parliament unanimously voted to restart it and the reason that the lives of hundreds of vulnerable Canadians were put into jeopardy was purely regulatory in nature? It had nothing to do with any mechanical failure, any safety incident--it was purely regulatory?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

It was a dispute with respect to the licence between the two agencies. That became very clear as the facts unfolded. There was no question about that.

But it is also very clear, as before Parliament, that all agencies--the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, AECL--and independent experts testified that in fact this new third shutdown system would be.... If we resumed operations in the state it was at, it would be able to operate safer than it ever has been before in its 50-year issue. It was described to me by many people in the industry that this was a licensing issue, not a safety issue.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

And on that issue, Minister, in the letter from you and the Minister of Health to Mr. Petrunik you state that Chalk River was out of compliance. Who told you it was out of compliance?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That was the position of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, as we tried to gather the facts on December 5 and December 8. Of course AECL maintained a different position.

As we moved forward looking for solutions, our focus to this entire timeframe was looking for solutions to ensure an adequate supply of medical isotopes. Both myself and the Minister of Health wrote both agencies directly, again asking them to focus on a solution and resolve this matter.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In terms of lessons learned, are you satisfied with the warnings you received? And if not, have you taken steps to improve the communication procedures between AECL and the CNSC?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That's a great question. It's clear, even reading the e-mail of November 30, that there was no sense of urgency from either the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission or AECL. Everyone, even late in the afternoon on Friday, November 30, believed that they would be resuming operations shortly, in early December, to resume isotope production.

Having said that, with the situation that unfolded, I have since written to both the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and AECL and asked them to notify me immediately whenever there is an unscheduled shortage, for whatever reasons, beyond a regularly scheduled maintenance outage, so we can stay on top of it.

So yes, we have made those changes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

What are your regrets concerning this whole incident, or do you have any?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

You have to deal with what you have to deal with. Obviously, we believe that this didn't need to happen. That was clear. That's why we brought a bill before Parliament, because all the evidence presented to us from all agencies independently suggested that we could resume isotope production in a safe manner. So that was the situation we had.

I suppose if there is a single biggest regret, it is the regret for the Canadian people and for patients who showed up at clinics across Canada for a diagnostic procedure. These are people with serious illnesses, and in the time of their greatest need, when they showed up to have these treatments, because of a discrepancy between these two agencies, they were unable to receive these treatments. This would be the single biggest regret, that we did end up with a shortage. Although we managed to contain it, it's obvious this should never have happened.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

Do you have anything else to add?