Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 24th, 2016

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay. Thank you for the task.

[Julie Gelfand]

My job is to present to Parliament the findings, and your job is to hold the entity accountable.

I'll go in perhaps and do a follow-up audit, but the list of potential audits I can do, the list of potential industries that might be of interest to you that you think maybe we should be looking at from a sustainable development perspective, is so big that in my seven years I don't think I'll go back into the nuclear industry on this one.

The way this whole thing works is the auditor provides the information to parliamentarians, and parliamentarians hold the entity accountable.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you.

[Julie Gelfand]

I'm sorry for being so blunt.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Cannings is next.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you, and thank you all for being here today.

Monsieur Lemieux and Mr. Strahl have covered a lot of what I wanted to ask as well. Perhaps I'll go into a bit more detail.

Mr. Strahl mentioned the testimony of Dr. Binder at this committee last week, when he said the draft guides were an administrative oversight. I took from his testimony that the draft guides were real guides, but they forgot to say they were, or make that decision, and that it had no impact on safety.

Do you agree with that assessment? Can you comment on whether they had any impact on safety, or is the point you can't tell?

[Julie Gelfand]

I'm going to pass that to John. He was the lead auditor and saw this stuff.

[John Affleck]

We saw a range from approved guides to no approved guides to draft guides to no guides. I would say the most troublesome part was when inspectors went out with no guide and just used professional judgment. We view that as a concern in terms of continuity as well. When you have turnover, you have to have the information written down so the next person who comes along can follow the same procedures.

In terms of a good example for administrative activities, we looked at their master inspection database and we found a lot of errors with that data's integrity, including inspections that were marked as completed that were never completed, and ones that were completed that were never marked as such.

If you're using that to make assessments and you have an indication that an inspection was actually done and it wasn't, that could be a bit more than administrative, should there be an unfortunate incident.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Right.

On another bit of detail, in the report you said we were told by site inspectors and site supervisors at every nuclear power plant that there were either not enough inspectors at their sites or not enough at the levels needed.

Can you clarify how short, on average, these sites were in terms of inspectors. What's the impact of this short-staffing?

[John Affleck]

It was hard for us to draw a judgment on that, because we're not the experts. As my colleague here has said, the CNSC does have people on site in addition to the 24 inspectors it assigns to the plants, but as the commissioner has alluded to, if you don't have a minimum number of inspections identified, then you don't know the minimum number of people you need to carry out those inspections.

While headquarters was telling us.... It's not unusual in an audit. You have central in Ottawa, and you have the regions of a department. The regions will tell you we don't have enough people, and this and that. We often don't give too much credence to that, but at every single site we went to, we were told that the people on site didn't feel they had enough people or people at the right level. We felt it was significant enough to report. We reported it not so much as our observation but to convey what the inspectors had relayed to us.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I think I'll finish with a general question to both of you and ask what advice you would have to offer CNSC so they can regain the confidence of Canadians, because this was a fairly damning report, I think.

[Julie Gelfand]

I think our best advice is highlighted in the recommendations. John mentioned the concept of professional judgment. The culture of relying on professional judgment is.... Obviously we do have to rely on professional judgment. At the same time, we also have to have things clear so that it can transfer from one generation to the next, from one inspector to the next. You need both. You need it to be well planned and systematic, with all the risks identified.

My guess is that the industry does that. The regulator should be doing it as well. Our best advice is to look at our audit that we did this year, and also our previous audits, and make sure that they are ahead of the industry, as opposed to....

To me, making a mistake in your database saying a site inspection was completed when it wasn't completed.... What if that thing, that piece or unit or something, blew or didn't work, and it created a real problem, but it was marked in their database as inspected? This means that maybe it doesn't get inspected again for two years or three years, and maybe then it's six years between the times it gets inspected. Those kinds of mistakes should not be happening with the regulator of an important precision industry. It provides 15% of our electricity, and over 60% in Ontario. It's important, and it had better be precise.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have a bit more time if you want.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'll turn to Mr. Jager, then.

According to a Canadian Press report in February, 200 communities and environmental groups have argued that nuclear waste facilities would be too risky, given their proximity to Lake Huron. Among the municipalities that were concerned were Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Kingston, Cobourg, Ajax, Hamilton, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Detroit, Flint, Toledo, etc. They're all concerned about the effects such a facility would have on this very important watershed. I just wanted to know what reply you have to those concerns.

[Glenn Jager]

We'll probably get into that in more detail in the next session, but what I would say is we've been safely managing waste for more than 40 years, and the storage and transportation of waste.

In reference to the DGR that we're proposing to construct at Bruce County, this was reviewed over a 16-year period. It's a science-based, very rigorous evaluation, and was internationally reviewed as well. The conclusions of all those independent assessments were that this management plan and this facility would be safe—very safe, in fact—in management of the waste.

When we look at the opinions of all of Ontarians in all the communities, over 70% indicated that they were in favour of the waste plan that we put together, and specifically the DGR and how we propose to manage waste.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Tan, it's over to you.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

My question is for OPG.

One year ago, many GTA residents in the Durham region and Scarborough received a package of iodine pills in the mail. Those pills were meant to protect the residents who live within 10 kilometres of Pickering and Darlington. Our CANDU technologies have proven to be technologies of high performance and with inherent safety features. As I know, OPG has very robust emergency preparedness program and a five-layer defence-in-depth principle. Even though a serious nuclear accident is extremely unlikely from OPG or in Ontario, some residents still felt increased fear when they received these pills in the mail, because they didn't know what they were.

My guess is that when the OPG goes to the residents and tries to explain the situation and the principle, they may not trust you 100%, because you're the nuclear energy producer. In your opinion, what is the best way to educate the local people? Should the government be more active in promoting this greater public awareness or confidence in our nuclear safety?

[Glenn Jager]

Specifically in regard to KI pill distribution, this is an example of the regulator saying, “These are the requirements that you must meet.” The province is accountable for the emergency preparedness of any event in the province, including nuclear events, through their emergency preparedness.

OPG's role in that is to ensure that we provide the materials to assist the province in developing those plans and educating the population that's in the vicinity of the plant or who would be affected by those plans. We provided a very interesting package—I can send you one—on the KI pills and how they are intended to be used. That went with every package. As well, we've done a number of studies in terms of the communities and everybody that's within that area. The support is extremely high. In fact, when we've done these studies, we've found that the support for nuclear power and our operation is among the highest in the world.

We feel our programs are effective. They are reaching.... There are some individuals who may never like it, but we'll keep trying. We'll keep trying to educate and we'll keep trying to develop materials. We accept any feedback. We're actively looking for feedback on how to improve, constantly.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I have another question about nuclear safety.

The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station has been producing about 20% of our electricity for Ontario. Starting this year, for the next 17 years, Darlington will be undergoing a major refurbishment project that will allow Darlington to operate safely until 2055. At the same time, the Pickering station will be shut down around 2020.

What strategies are you putting in place to make sure that the refurbishment project and the shutdown of the Pickering station will not affect Ontario's energy needs over the next, let's say, 17 years?

[Glenn Jager]

The energy requirements for the province are managed by the IESO. We're a generator, so we provide energy to the province.

The refurbishment of Darlington will take 10 years. That's the time span. We're seeking to operate Pickering right through that period. The completion of the refurbishment coincides pretty much with when Pickering will cease commercial operations. The real question will be how the energy that Pickering currently produces is going to be provided to the province. The IESO will look at the existing capacity, first and foremost, within the province, and that will likely come from the existing gas generation within the province, as well as some renewable projects and existing renewable energy. That's the current plan.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Gelfand, I will give you some background.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and we hope to invite you to appear before us. At that time, we will be able to follow up on the recommendations you made to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and that we would like to see implemented.

Do you have a specific recommendation to make? The Standing Committee on Public Accounts usually asks for an action plan with timelines. You have already alerted me that the commission's processes are not necessarily the most reliable. Do you have any recommendations to help direct our approach with the commission, to ensure that all your recommendations are implemented and that we do not have the same kind of report in five years?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm going to have to ask you to answer that in less than a minute.

[Julie Gelfand]

Okay.

Can I think about it? I have not yet appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I would like to talk to the auditor general and ask his opinion. That would be my first appearance before that committee. I would be very pleased to have the opportunity because the audits I conduct are similar to those of the auditor general.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

We are fully aware of that aspect of your work.

Thank you.