Thank you very much.
I will give my presentation in English, but I will be pleased to answer your questions and comments in French.
Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you today. You're dealing with a very important topic. It's one that Greenpeace doesn't believe has had enough public scrutiny.
To start my presentation I'd like to begin with three reality checks that I think the committee and the government are struggling with right now in its debates around the privatization of AECL. From the point of view of Greenpeace, there are three things we need to keep in mind while we do this.
First, despite proclamations of a nuclear revival, there is little or no market for reactors internationally, in particular for CANDU reactors. This is mostly because international vendors such as AECL, but also AREVA, have failed to design a new generation of reactors that are low cost and competitive with other sources of energy. What's more, the industry hasn't learned its past lessons, which it originally promised in the early 2000s, that the cost overruns and delays of the past would be a thing of the past.
Secondly, based on this, we need to admit that CANDU technology is at a dead end. AECL has been unable to successfully innovate, design, and sell any new reactor designs since the CANDU 6 in the late 1960s, early 1970s. In regard to its next-generation reactor, the advanced CANDU, AECL has failed to meet its objectives for market readiness for the design as well as for price points. Members of the Canadian industry, in fact, have started to admit publicly that it is too late for the advanced CANDU.
Finally, while the federal government has stated its intent with AECL restructuring is “to maximize Canadian taxpayers’ return on their investment”, we must admit that such payback will be trivial. Total cumulative subsidies to AECL are well over $20 billion. Meanwhile, media reports indicate that the market value for selling AECL would be about $300 million. This is a bitter pill to swallow, but necessary medicine if we are going to stop the bleeding connected with ongoing AECL subsidies and support of the CANDU line.
In this way, Greenpeace believes that the privatization of AECL and the government's initiative could make a positive contribution to Canada meeting its international commitments to transitioning towards a more sustainable economy by shifting nuclear power's high cost from the taxpayer to the nuclear industry, where it belongs. We would support such a scenario if undertaken by the government. However, there has been an ongoing lack of transparency and scrutiny regarding the proposed restructuring and privatization of AECL. This is not the fault of the present government. Without increased public scrutiny and consultation, Greenpeace is concerned the restructuring and privatization will neglect public interest issues such as sustainability and taxpayer protection.
My written brief to you today, which you won't get because I didn't have time to have it translated--my apologies--is in fact a petition to the federal Environment Commissioner in which Greenpeace requests the federal government to make a number of commitments.
One, come clean on the liabilities taxpayers have been exposed to in order to prop up current CANDU life extensions, such as the one taking place at Point Lepreau, and Bruce, in Ontario.
Second, we make a request that the government raise the bar on transparency and accountability for all future AECL contracts. Before future contracts are signed, the federal taxpayer should have the right to know what liabilities AECL's contractual performance guarantees may expose them to.
Finally, the petition, I hope, will provide the committee with valuable background information on AECL's recent performance.
We don't make this request lightly. In 2009 the federal taxpayer was forced to pay $100 million to cover “off-balanced liabilities” for cost overruns at the Bruce A, Point Lepreau, and South Korean refurbishment projects. According to AECL's annual reports, it currently holds $500 million in these “off-balanced book liabilities”, due to contractual performance guarantees for reactor construction projects. It is unclear what accountability mechanisms or caps the federal government has placed on AECL for the accumulation of such liabilities under this government and former governments.
Greenpeace's petition requests clarity on the financial liabilities for the contracts that have already been signed. Greenpeace is deeply concerned that the federal government is increasingly exposing the federal taxpayer to these financial risks for life extension projects.
It has been said that AECL's ability--to change topics--to keep going, or its ability to sell the advanced CANDU reactor to Ontario, will be “a destiny issue” for the organization. It should be noted that the federal taxpayer has already subsidized the design of the advanced CANDU for $433 million, well above initial estimates. This is just for the design. We haven't sold one yet.
Ontario is now asking the federal government to subsidize the construction of the ACR by potentially billions of dollars while the federal government is also asked to assume significant risk transfer.
As you can see, this endeavour has already become, as you would say in English, “in for a penny, in for a pound”. That's what we're in for with AECL and the advanced CANDU. However, this does not make good public policy.
It should be noted that AECL has been unable to successfully innovate and design any new reactor since the CANDU 6 in the 1960s was first developed, despite billions in subsidies. Some in the Canadian nuclear industry have already given up on the ACR, despite the hundreds of millions we've spent, and are calling for a return to the antiquated CANDU 6. Such desperation should not motivate or cloud our thinking on moving forward and protecting the taxpayer and protecting the environment.
To conclude, I hope this committee will use our petition and pose some questions to both the government and AECL and members of the CANDU industry. And I hope we can raise the bar on public transparency for the liabilities the Canadian taxpayer has been forced to assume for propping up CANDU in the recent past and also over the past 50 years.
Thank you very much.