Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 16th, 2008

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

Minister, you say that in the Auditor General's report there is no indication of the urgency. It has three major findings of serious deficiencies. Two out of the three major deficiencies revolve around the isotopes production. One has to do with the MAPLE reactors, the replacement reactors. The second one is about the existing reactor, given that it's 50 to 60 years old. It says:

AECL notes that some of these facilities are 50 to 60 years old and require upgrades and maintenance to meet health and safety standards, attract employees, and allow research and development to continue. The Corporation is currently having discussions with Natural Resources Canada about funding needed for CRL.

Also, on page 11 it says:

In June 2006, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission renewed AECL's licence for the NRU reactor and the Chalk River Laboratories until 2011. The licence requires the Corporation to take a number of actions during the licensed period.

So the Auditor General's report is quite clear about the ramifications, the situation the reactor is going through, and the pending problems that it is having.

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

Give me a minute to respond. First of all, let me just say on the record that the Auditor General did indicate a number of deficiencies with Chalk River, but at no point in the report did she indicate any issues with respect to the NRU reactor that would have led.... As I said earlier, we could not have concluded that.

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

I just read you a quote about the NRU reactor.

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

Mr. Chair, may I finish, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Alghabra, order please.

There are two things. Firstly, if you could, please ask your questions through the chair. Secondly, give the minister a reasonable amount of time to respond. I understand your concern about losing questioning time. At a certain point a courteous interruption will be allowed, but do give the minister a chance to give at least an appropriate response.

Go ahead, Mr. Minister.

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

First of all, she identified a number of issues, not unlike in her 2002 report, in which she again identified similar issues. We were aware of those, Mr. Chair. That is in fact why we have increased funding for the Chalk River laboratories in the amount of $250 million in this past fiscal year alone. This is an unprecedented amount. It has never received this amount of money to address issues up there.

With respect to the MAPLE reactors, she did identify those. But I want to make it very clear, Mr. Chair, that these reactors have been under construction since 1996. They have had a number of cost overruns. There have been serious problems with them. These reactors have never operated. They were scheduled to operate many years ago, but they are now not scheduled to operate for at least another year, and possibly much longer. There are still a number of issues to resolving that. The previous government is fully aware of that, as they are the ones who began the construction of these reactors.

My point is that there is nothing in this report based upon which anyone could have anticipated a shutdown of the NRU. The MAPLE reactors, as I have said, are not even on schedule for coming on-line. That is what the Auditor General made reference to in her report.

She also made reference to other regulatory deficiencies that we were fully aware of at Chalk River. This organization has been neglected for up to 15 years and has not received funding. This is something we inherited, and we are putting the money in there at an unprecedented rate to resolve these issues, but they are not connected to the shutdown of the NRU in any way or to medical isotope production.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Alghabra, your time is up.

We go now to Madame DeBellefeuille.

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

That is not fair, Mr. Chair. I asked you for a 30-second warning. You let the minister talk until my time ran out. I would request at least a minute extension, because the minister has taken most of my time, and I asked for a 30-second warning. So I request that you give me an extension.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Alghabra, it is up to each member to manage their time. You had seven and a half minutes. I am going to ask members to stick to the time. You can certainly ask one of your members in the second round if you could take some of his or her time. You could handle it that way.

Let's get on with the questioning.

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

Let the record be clear that you are not being fair.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Minister and Ms. Doyle.

When one looks at the file and the sequence of events, Mr. Chairman, one realizes that this matter is extremely complex. There was a fair bit of electronic correspondence and a number of meetings between your department, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).

My first comment concerns your behaviour as minister, aimed at undermining the credibility of the CNSC. In my opinion, if Canada gave itself a quasi-judicial body to protect Canadians where nuclear safety is concerned, and made it an independent body, it was for the good reason that Canadians had to be protected from political interference with a tribunal with a very specific mandate. According to what one reads, the pressure you brought to bear on the president in order to have the reactor restarted may indeed be perceived as totally unacceptable interference. We understand that you may have been very torn in your position, but the commission has a very specific mandate.

Yours is different. Given that this reactor is the largest producer of medical isotopes in the world and produces 50 % of them, and in light of all the warnings you received, as Minister of Natural Resources, it is inconceivable that you did not concern yourself with what would happen in case of a shortage, Minister.

How can that be? How did we wind up without sufficient reserves to cope with such a breakdown? We could not have foreseen the breakdown, the prolonged shutdown, but as minister your responsibility was to ensure with AECL that we had sufficient reserves to cope in the eventuality of such an event.

The reactor has been operating for a long time with a single pump. It was conceivable that there would be a shutdown one day or another. How is it that you did not concern yourself with making sure that Canadians had a reserve of isotopes? How is it that you were not aware of this? Why was Minister Tony Clement notified so late of this matter?

I would ask you to be brief so that I have some time left to ask other questions, Minister.

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

Thank you very much.

First of all, let me address a number of the issues you've raised.

With respect to the independence of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, I completely agree with that assertion.

In my interventions with the commission and my communications, at all times I held myself to the highest conduct and urged the president of the commission to put the matter before the commission to render a decision, which was within her statutory powers to do.

There was an urgency to this situation, we should make no mistake, as the events unfolded on December 3, once that urgency started to materialize.

The member has asked why we didn't do something about this to ensure that there was an adequate stock of isotopes or adequate inventories. It's important to note that the half-life of a radioisotope is only 66 hours. It's very short.

Obviously, as these events unfolded, we literally had to take action. When it became clear to me and the government--from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission experts, from the AECL experts and independent experts--that the reactor could be operated more safely than it ever had been before, then, yes, the events followed through and culminated in an act of Parliament, to which every party agreed.

I just want to conclude, Mr. Chair, that our position is that the president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission did not exercise her responsibilities, her executive powers, in her position as CEO and president throughout this process.

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

I don't share your opinion on that, Minister. The commission has a very specific mandate to fulfil. When one acts as you did one undermines the confidence people should have in a body whose purpose is to protect Canadians when it comes to nuclear safety. You raised doubts in people's minds.

In the future, will we be able to trust the commission? Will it fulfil its mandate to protect Canadians, as we have a right to expect? You have raised doubts in this matter.

As you know, as I told you several times and we have already debated this, I think that nuclear energy is not clean energy. But you promote it. What is going to happen with the tar sands and the installation of the nuclear reactor? All of this raises concerns.

Will the commission and its new president be looking out for the safety of Canadians where nuclear energy is concerned, or will they be at the service of a government and politicians who want the commission to act according to their own values and ideas? Whenever things do not suit it, will the government set aside the people and leaders who do not see eye to eye with them?

Everyone knows that the chill in the relationship between Ms. Keen and the Conservative government dates back to before the Chalk River crisis. Ms. Keen was reluctant to give the go-ahead to granting pre-authorizations for new CANDU reactors, a position which prevents or slows down marketing and investments in new generation.

As minister, when you know that you are dealing with a woman who is a straight arrow, who respects the law and her mandate, and there is nothing you can do because the law is the law, why hound the president rather than try to find an alternative that could have respected the commission's mandate? Why did you attack the executive rather than look for another approach, another course of action? This would have allowed you as minister to say that you believed in the commission and its mandate, but because there was an emergency situation, another solution had to be found.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Madame DeBellefeuille, your time is up.

Minister, would you like to respond?

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me say unequivocally on the record that I would have been remiss in my role as a minister of the crown if I did not act and if I did not take the actions on behalf of our government.

Mr. Chair, we contacted both AECL and the CNSC--actions followed by a cabinet directive, and then followed by an act of Parliament--when it became very clear that the president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission at that point was not exercising her duties in that role to put this matter before the commission, which we believe she has the statutory powers to do. Only at that point did we bring a bill before Parliament and let Parliament decide who had an opportunity.

It was also clear, Mr. Chair, that had we not acted, people invariably would have died, since medical isotopes for serious cancer procedures were not available, and we could not let that happen. We had to act, and we did.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

Now, from the New Democratic Party, Ms. Bell. Go ahead, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I heard from the minister that he received the 2007 Auditor General's report. I just want to ask quickly if he received the 1996 and the 2002 Auditor General's special reports.

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

Yes, we have received those reports. In fact, Mr. Chair, those reports--both the 1996 and the 2002--had never been made public.

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

Thank you. I just wanted to know if you received them.

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

Just for your information, they hadn't been made public, if you haven't been able to see them. I understand that AECL has put them on its website in the last day or two and made them public, but they were not released prior to that.

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

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

You mentioned that this is a long-standing problem. I've asked for a full investigation into this. Do you agree that the issue needs a long, hard look by maybe Sheila Fraser or another eminent person?

Also, would you agree—and I think you probably will—that this would eliminate any conflict of interest we have seen here by the Liberal MPs who want to protect previous ministers, if there was any perceived conflict of interest by past ministers and maybe any conflict that you or your department may have had in this?

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

First of all, let me say that the Auditor General's report, even in 2002, outlined these problems. There's been a chronic shortage of funding for AECL going back over 15 years. It is a serious problem.

As I said earlier, we have increased our funding to a substantial level, but we also recognize that there needs to be change. That is why we have launched a complete review of AECL, including the MAPLE reactors and how they go forward, including Chalk River, and including the future of the corporation, by independent experts, as you're suggesting. Those experts will come back and provide advice to the government. So we are taking action on a go-forward basis to ensure that these issues can be resolved once and for all.

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

I'm asking for an independent investigation of all the things that led up to this point, not just of AECL.

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

With respect to the isotope shortage and this issue, I'm happy to table the documents today and answer all your questions, Mr. Chair.

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

When did you decide to fire Ms. Keen?