Thank you, all, for coming today to talk to us about nuclear energy. We've just started this segment of our energy examination. I think we have touched on a number of things today. One is the emissions of nuclear safety, and public perception I think is a real issue. Many industries across the country that had for decades just taken their positions for granted are now finding out that they have to explain themselves. Sometimes that's a difficult transition.
I think people like us who are examining this know that the facts are on your side. It's a safe industry. It has benefits for clean tech. An evidence-based review would show that it's a good option for Canadians, but as we've seen, we're in this position where some of the organizations and individuals who are most in favour of addressing climate change aggressively would also be most opposed to an expansion of nuclear energy. I think that's the difficult position that nuclear finds itself in, which is that it is a solution to many of the climate change issues, but it also has that stigma attached to it even though it is a safe industry.
I wanted to focus on safety here. Certainly we've heard about small modular reactors. If we want to talk about moving those into the north for natural resource development or any projects like that, Canadians need to be assured that it would be safe. I think that's one of the things I wanted to talk about with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
As was referenced, there's been a recent report by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development where she said:
We found that the Commission does conduct inspections, and when issues are found, they follow up to ensure compliance, and they do so 100 percent of the time. However, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission could not show that site inspections were planned in a rigorous and systematic way to ensure that they were sufficient—in both number and type—to verify that nuclear facilities were complying with all requirements. The Commission also could not show that it had allocated enough staff to carry out inspections, or that inspectors always followed procedures when carrying out and documenting inspections. For example, we found that three quarters of site inspections were conducted without an approved inspection guide. This led to inconsistencies, gaps in documentation, and missed opportunities to improve the way inspections are carried out.
This investigation by the commissioner was conducted as a result of a letter from a whistleblower, an anonymous letter.
The initial reaction, Dr. Binder, was for an internal investigation that said that the claims were exaggerated. They've since been verified by the commissioner. You questioned the letter's authenticity and suggested its contents were part of a conspiracy theory, according to Gloria Galloway of The Globe and Mail on October 12.
I want to give you the opportunity. You said you accepted the recommendations. What lessons have you learned from this experience? What specific actions are you taking to address those concerns, and what are you doing to ensure that future safety concerns are handled in a better way?