Evidence of meeting #24 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nru.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
But the regulator of nuclear safety in Canada, you—I don't mean you specifically, but your organization—decided to shut things down in 2007.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
My understanding, and I wasn't there, is that the AECL shut itself down. The commission has never rendered a commission decision. As a commission, they never issued the decision about opening or not opening it.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Then the minister at the time overrode AECL's decision or your organization's decision? I'm confused. The regulator comes in and says it has concerns. You are the regulator, your organization. Whenever I say “you” from now on—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Don't worry, don't take it personally. Anyway, you suggest you have concerns. AECL shuts itself down because the regulator of safety says there are concerns. The minister then tells you to open back up again.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
My understanding of what happened was that AECL proposed to reopen, to restart, and there was a kind of a leaning of the regulator towards allowing them to reopen. But how the mechanism of this reluctance was transmitted wasn't formal and wasn't through the normal commission work. You have to understand that normal commission work is a public hearing. We issue a decision in writing, and that's the law of the land.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's fascinating. The way we've set things up in Canada is that, although the departments are somewhat separate—you exist separate from AECL and AECL, in some technical terms, sits separate from the minister—in the end it's all in one box. The Ministry of Natural Resources has authority over both the regulator and the provider of nuclear energy and isotopes and is also the promoter of nuclear energy and isotopes—all in one happy little box.
It's interesting that this isn't as formal as one would think. There was a dispute and Linda Keen got fired. The government said to restart because it was life and death, but now it's not, for some reason. With all of that mingled together, and with the government now saying it would like to privatize AECL, it prompts the question: if a little light goes off in Pickering next week, is there going to be pressure on the regulator not to get too excited about it because the government's trying to sell the thing?
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
I have to disagree. I feel very independent, just so you know. I and the commissioners—
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
—feel very independent. I have absolutely no reason to believe that the government would interfere with our business, because they can't.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
The only thing they can do is remove me from the presidency, but I'm still a commissioner, a permanent commissioner.
NDP
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
I'm talking about the commission business. The commission business is totally independent of the government.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
That's right, but I'm only one commissioner out of seven. In fact, in some of these decisions I don't even vote. It's the independent commissioner who actually renders the independent decision, and that stands.
As an aside, the Obama administration came in and replaced the chair of the nuclear regulator in the U.S. and the chair remained as a commissioner.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, but the Obama administration did not fire that chair in the midst of a shutdown in a life-or-death situation that ended up in the middle of Congress. This ended up in our Parliament.
However, I don't want to spend all my time in 2007. Did you have any concerns before the Chalk River facility shut down this time? Did your agency express anything in memos, in any reports leading up to the leaks and the shutdown?
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
No. We continuously, on a daily basis, monitor activities on site through our staff. Anything untoward is reported instantly.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
Not really. This is a very complicated machine. The point here is that whatever happened did not have a safety impact on the population, the workers, or the environment.
President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
This time. And last time.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
But what about next time?
Here's my point: you felt the operation was doing okay, and it shut down again, leaked again, third time in two years, and yet there seems to be a lot of calm and dismissiveness about the idea of losing heavy water at a rate of five kilograms an hour. It's being collected in barrels. Is that correct?