Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We're ready to get under way here.

We have two more witnesses joining us this morning. From Bubble Technology Industries we have Lianne Ing, and from CANDU Owners Group we have Fred Dermarkar.

Thank you both very much for being here. I don't know if you were here earlier, but I'll open the floor to each of you for up to 10 minutes, and then turn it over to committee members to ask questions. You're free to deliver your remarks or answer questions in either official language.

Mr. Dermarker, you look like you're ready to go, so why don't we start with you?

[Fred Dermarkar, President and Chief Executive Officer, CANDU Owners Group Inc.]

Thank you very much.

It's truly an honour to be here this morning. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about the Canadian nuclear industry, specifically the CANDU Owners Group, also known as COG.

Today I will explain who we are and tell you about our work, which is done in collaboration with our members, the operators of CANDU nuclear plants worldwide, including Canadian operators such as Bruce Power, New Brunswick Power, and Ontario Power Generation. I will give you some context on the value of this work, not only for our members in the industry but for Canadians as a whole.

COG is a not-for-profit organization entirely funded by its members, the operators of CANDU reactors worldwide. Our sole focus at COG is to continuously improve performance through collaborative knowledge sharing, research, and development activities. Simply put, our vision is to achieve CANDU excellence through collaboration. The goal is to sustain safe, clean, reliable, and affordable electricity for the millions of citizens worldwide who rely on our technology, including more than 14 million Canadians in Ontario and New Brunswick, who get much of their power from CANDU stations.

COG's activities result in an investment of more than $65 million in R and D annually. According to the European Commission Joint Research Centre's annual global ranking, this amount is equal to the R and D investment of a top-15 Canadian private company. It is a direct contribution to the economy, and to spin-off research and development activity in Canada in the public, private, and education sectors.

In regard to the education sector, working with the University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering, or UNENE, COG invests about three-quarters of a million dollars annually on collaborative research projects with Canadian universities. Perhaps the most exciting part of this investment is the outcome of the research: a safe, clean, dependable, and affordable baseload electricity source, free of greenhouse gas emissions. This improves our quality of life and provides a low-carbon electricity source to address the threat of climate change.

With our members, COG has made great strides in the improvement of safety and performance in CANDU plants worldwide. In addition to pooling their financial resources, our members share the time and knowledge of their top engineers, scientists, operators, and maintainers. They work in teams alongside experts from COG and from companies like AMEC, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Kinectrics, SNC-Lavalin, and S.N. Stern Laboratories, to name just a few, all part of today's knowledge economy. They achieve together more than any single company could achieve on its own. That is the power of collaboration, and that is the strength of COG.

Here are a few examples of the results our members have accomplished together, and the research and knowledge-sharing programs COG facilitates.

A good place to start is with our post-Fukushima response, whose aim was to ensure our CANDU stations, and our people, are positioned to respond to highly improbable events well beyond those we envisioned when we designed and built the plants. Aligned with the requirements outlined by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, ours was one of the most comprehensive and consistent responses worldwide.

On a personal note, I was directly involved in these initiatives. To see our nuclear plants successfully implement a strong response to Fukushima, and to help lead the world in that response, was a highlight of my career.

As well, through COG's R and D and joint project programs, our members have also extended the life of critical plant components, resulting in longer and safer plant operating life. This has saved billions of dollars, improved operating safety, and also reduced environmental impact by deferring the need for new generation. It has also enabled OPG and Bruce Power to adjust their project schedules to minimize the number of units that are shut down and are undergoing refurbishment and major component replacement at the same time.

Our research and development has also improved safety margins on operating equipment, which not only improves safety in a very fundamental way but also helps to improve revenue generation, thereby reducing the cost on a per-megawatt basis. It also has improved practices and programs to further reduce the environmental impact of our operations. This includes mitigation for impingement and entrainment of fish in the Great Lakes and improvements to spawning grounds.

Working together, our members have strengthened human performance and operator knowledge in safety and reliability. They have collaborated to develop new processes and techniques for better outcomes on everyday activities as well as unplanned events. The result is some of the best plant performances year over year in the history of our nuclear stations, even as they have moved into the later phases of life. For example, Bruce Power's 40-year-old refurbished units 2 and 4 reactors sustained 99.5% and 88.4% capability factors last year. Pickering unit 4, which began operation in 1971, achieved a 97.3% capability factor last year. These are excellent results that compare well with much younger units and reflect our ability to get more out of plant assets as our understanding of operations and maintenance has evolved.

Darlington, as the fleet's newest plant, has benefited most from that knowledge and research, because everything we learned from the earlier plants was applied to Darlington even sooner in its life cycle, which sets it up for strong performance post-refurbishment.

Through hundreds of shared initiatives, COG has provided the technical and experimental basis from which our members implement programs and plant changes. The billions of dollars in savings is an excellent return on their investment in both financial and human terms.

I'm now going to step back and provide a bit more context on the foundation of our organization. COG was formed 32 years ago, in 1984, by the Canadian nuclear operators, all of whom operated plants with made-in-Canada CANDU technology. Two years later, the first of COG's international members, also CANDU operators, joined and were followed by others. Today our international members include CANDU and pressurized heavy water reactor operators in Argentina, Romania, Korea, China, Pakistan, and India. In fact, every utility worldwide operating one of these reactors is a member of COG, and these reactors account for more than 10% of all power reactors worldwide. We should take pride in seeing this unique, made-in-Canada technology used extensively and successfully throughout the world.

COG's international aspect allows for further cost sharing, which means our Canadian plants benefit from research jointly funded by the international community. The international members bring diverse perspectives from operating their plants within different cultures and from vantage points that may differ from our Canadian perspective. This strengthens us and lifts our eyes to challenges and opportunities for innovation that we may not otherwise have considered.

This also provides COG the opportunity to share the strengths of our Canadian experience in areas of the world still developing nuclear capacity, including in the areas of nuclear safety and safety culture. The world is small, and a nuclear event anywhere has a ripple effect everywhere. By helping to strengthen our international partners in their operations, we also strengthen nuclear's reputation here at home.

We are also building bench strength through supplier participants. In collaboration with the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries, we have connected operators and suppliers in a dialogue to improve safety and reliability right through the supply chain. This includes in the plant, where suppliers are working more closely with operators than ever before. In particular, we have focused efforts on preparing suppliers for the refurbishment at OPG's Darlington station and for the major component replacement projects at Bruce Power.

COG is an entry point for its members to interact with many organizations worldwide. Our collaboration agreements with industry organizations here in Canada and globally have led to award-winning partnerships as well as stronger policy at both the national and global level.

When we talk about the future of nuclear, we can and should look to new technologies. We can also continue to rely on the ones serving us well today. The Darlington, Bruce, and Point Lepreau plants can provide safe, clean, affordable, and predictable power for generations of Canadians to come.

In closing, COG's mission is to improve performance through collaboration. The goal, always, is continuous improvement through both the human and technical performance of our operating stations. COG's role is to help our members better operate their nuclear plants, achieve stronger human performance, and ultimately build a foundation for public trust.

Thank you for your interest in the future of nuclear and for giving me the opportunity to share with you COG's role in shaping its future.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much, sir.

Ms. Ing.

[Lianne Ing, Vice-President, Bubble Technology Industries Inc.]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me to discuss the future of the nuclear sector.

In the course of your study, you have already heard from many of our colleagues in the nuclear sector. You've heard about how nuclear power provides 15% of Canada's electricity, using a safe, reliable, and low-carbon technology. You've heard that the nuclear sector provides 60,000 high-quality jobs in Canada, and you've heard how Canada's nuclear knowledge is a strategic capability providing Canadians and our partner nations with long-term energy security, and giving us a seat at the international table for important topics like nuclear non-proliferation.

Since you've already heard about these benefits, I would like to spend my time with the committee today discussing Canada's nuclear sector in a broader sense, specifically focusing on the innovation and nuclear expertise that resides in Canada outside of the traditional nuclear power industry. My hope is that this slightly different perspective will underscore how investments in the nuclear sector can have positive effects on Canada's innovation capacity in many adjacent sectors, including defence, counter-terrorism, space research, and medicine.

Our company, Bubble Technology Industries, is a direct example of how government investment in nuclear research can yield long-term economic benefits to Canada. In 1988 our company was formed as the very first commercial spinoff from the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, or AECL. We were created to commercialize a new type of radiation detector, called the Bubble Detector, which was invented by my father, Dr. Harry Ing, while he was working as a research scientist at AECL.

Radiation detectors are, of course, important in the traditional nuclear power sector, but they are also important in many other sectors where radiation can be found. In defence and security applications, we need to detect, track, and, when needed, intercept nuclear materials that could pose a potential security threat. In addition, we can use radiation to help find other types of security threats such as explosives, concealed weapons, and contraband.

There are also many other applications where radiation is used, such as medical diagnostics and life-saving nuclear medicine procedures; industrial sterilization and packaging processes; density gauges used in the construction industry; inspection techniques used to check the quality of welds in the aerospace industry; disease control for crops in the agriculture industry; and well-logging techniques in the oil industry. As a result, when we talk about the broader nuclear sector, we are in fact talking about nuclear technologies that intersect with many other industries that are vital to Canada's economy.

As part of that broader nuclear sector, our company started with just seven employees and a single radiation detection product. The spinoff process was new to AECL and new to my father. There were many sleepless nights in those early days, trying to figure out how to keep a small spinoff company afloat.

Fortunately, we survived it. In the intervening 27 years that we've been in business, we've grown to about 50 employees, we now have more than two dozen products that are successfully exported to 25 countries, we've been awarded more than 20 patents, and we've conducted over 200 innovative contract research programs for customers around the world.

Our cutting-edge technology has been used in counter-terrorism applications to protect people and infrastructure at some of the world's largest events, including multiple U.S. presidential inaugurations, multiple Super Bowls, World Series events, the Olympics, and major international political summits.

Our technology has also flown on over two dozen space missions to support research aimed at protecting astronauts from radiation hazards, and understanding the radiation environment in space a little bit better. Astronaut Chris Hadfield conducted experiments on board the international space station using our radiation detection technology, and he personally spoke about how radiation in space is a serious concern for astronauts, particularly as we look ahead to longer-manned missions to Mars.

Our company's accomplishments have been made possible by a creative, dedicated, and highly skilled staff. Within our company we have the ability to generate innovative ideas and then carry those ideas through all stages of research, development, production, and worldwide deployment.

When we started back in 1988, as a tiny spinoff company from a government lab, I don't think anyone could have predicted the evolution of our company. When you start a company, the odds are not good. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada tracks small business statistics: 50% of small businesses in Canada fail after five years; less than 12% of small businesses in Canada export their goods or services, and when they do, they typically export to a single country, usually the United States. Yet even with those somewhat discouraging statistics, small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, continue to be the backbone of the Canadian private sector. SMEs employ over 90% of the private sector workforce in Canada, and they created more than 95% of the net new jobs in Canada between 2005 and 2015. Those two figures alone make it imperative for Canada to nurture and invest in its small businesses, as they truly are the engine of the Canadian economy.

When you invest in nuclear research and innovation in Canada, and when you support small businesses in Canada through programs like the SR and ED tax incentives, NRC's industrial research assistance program, and PSPC's build in canada innovation program, you open the door for a group of small businesses that can beat the odds. You create companies like Bubble Tech, and others in our sector, that can beat the 50% failure rate for start-ups, that can scale from seven employees to 50 employees in a sustainable way and provide high-quality, knowledge-based jobs, and that can export to 25 countries instead of one country or no countries.

Beating the odds is possible, because with the right focus and sustained government investment, Canada is well positioned to be a world leader in the nuclear sector, not only in the traditional nuclear power segment but also in the broader nuclear sector, which intersects with defence, security, medicine, construction, aerospace, agriculture, and the oil industry.

The government can help small businesses like ours beat the odds by supporting the full spectrum of nuclear research, innovation, and commercialization activities in Canada. We need to educate and train highly skilled personnel in the nuclear sector. We need to encourage Canadian research by implementing a small business innovation research program in Canada, similar to programs used in more than a dozen countries, including the United States. We need to encourage the Canadian government to lead by example, by buying innovative Canadian technologies, and by considering Canadian content in its purchases. And we need to further incentivize large companies doing business in Canada to partner with small Canadian companies.

More than anything, we need to recognize that small Canadian companies can be world class. When they are, they warrant our support, because they represent our country's best chance at job creation and economic growth. Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you both.

Just so that we don't run out of time, I propose that we do five-minute rounds in the first round.

Is everybody in agreement with that? Okay. Great.

First up, I believe we have Mr. Tan.

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

Thank you.

My question goes to COG. We have CANDU reactors running in the world, in Canada, China, Korea, and several other countries, thanks to the hard work done by the operators and also through COG. Our CANDU reactors remain the best performers among the nuclear fleet worldwide.

Inevitably, some day these CANDU reactors will age and eventually be decommissioned. I assume it is quite unlikely that we are going to see a new reactor, a new build, in Canada in the next years, or even the next decade. So while we have to decommission our CANDU reactors, we cannot decommission our talent and manpower, and the brain power, for example, at Chalk River, or other people working in the field.

I guess for the Canadian nuclear industry to survive and even to grow, we need to create a market globally. Right now, our technology, like our CANDU 6, is a generation II technology. We used to have ACR-1000, which is a generation III. You know that; you know that probably better than me, but nobody has even talked about that, so that's been on the shelf.

If we go to the global market, what technology can we provide, and what should the government do to have a long-term strategy to support the growth of our nuclear industry in Canada?

[Fred Dermarkar]

Thank you very much for the question.

First, I would like to clarify that the CANDU Owners Group does not engage in marketing activities. The responsibility, actually, or the lead for marketing CANDU technology is with SNC-Lavalin. SNC-Lavalin has the rights to do that. They are in the best position to talk about exactly what they are doing, but I would be happy to share with you some of the information that has been publicly made available.

They're in active discussions right now with China for developing the advanced fuel CANDU reactor. China's vision for nuclear technology is that it would like to recycle the fuel from its light-water reactors, the pressurized water reactors that it's operating in its country. The CANDU reactor provides a viable technology for taking spent fuel from the light-water reactors and re-burning it in a CANDU-type reactor. Their vision, as I understand it, is for every four light-water reactors to build one advanced fuel CANDU reactor to accept the fuel. That provides certainly an exciting opportunity, because it provides a market for about 25 advanced fuel CANDU reactors just in China. Again, SNC-Lavalin is in a much better position to speak on this. I'm reflecting information that I read about in the public domain.

In regard to the second part of your question, on what is government's role in sustaining it, government has a key role in sustaining the infrastructure that enables nuclear to exist, to continue to improve with time. I just came back, for example, from a trip to India last week. I met with the leaders of the Department of Atomic Energy, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. There they have sustained a vision around nuclear development that transcends changes in government, that is long-range, and has many aspects to it. Underlying it is a very strong research base.

We need to have a strong R and D platform. The importance of having a research reactor just was mentioned at the previous session. Today, COG is doing work in the NRU reactor. We are making the most of the time that we have available to us before that reactor shuts down.

What will we do when that reactor shuts down? We will still need to do some research. We will likely need to do some research in the coming years. What we are doing right now at COG is looking for alternative places to do that research if we cannot do it here in Canada. What that means is wherever we do that research, that facility will build the knowledge and capability and Canada will not, which means that in terms of sustainability we are driving towards a dead end if we don't build the fundamental R and D capabilities.

At COG we will find alternatives to support our members. We will have to look outside the country if we cannot find it in this country. But it will be a loss for Canada to go to other countries to do this fundamental research that we need to sustain the technology.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks.

We're going to stick to the five minutes.

Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to share my time with my colleague Ms. Gallant, just to ensure that we both have a chance.

For CANDU, over the past few weeks since we started this study, we've heard about some pretty interesting advances or potential advances in technology, whether it's nuclear fusion, fast neutron reactors, SMRs, and today we heard a little bit more about the molten salt reactor. I'm happy to hear that you are also at CANDU working on advanced fuel reactors as well, as I think it's important that CANDU remains on the leading edge on the technology side.

I'm just wondering if you can answer the fact that the opportunity to build another reactor in Canada is difficult, but what is CANDU doing to try to change public perception in terms of a couple of things—the safety of the CANDU reactor as you move forward in technology, and advancements in terms of reducing the cost of building a CANDU reactor?

I know for us, in Alberta, we don't have any nuclear power. There's been lots of discussion on reactors in northern Alberta to help power the oil sands. So perhaps you can talk about changing public perception on the safety and also the cost of a CANDU reactor, and maybe some advancements that are helping to address those two things.

[Fred Dermarkar]

In regard to your first question, with respect to safety, COG is not, to clarify, an advocacy organization. We don't do marketing campaigns or anything along those lines. We are very much a technical organization. What we do is work with our members to identify where there are opportunities to improve safety margins, to improve environmental performance, and so on.

I want to note that the performance of the fleet today is already very high, but we want to get ahead of problems. In the world of nuclear safety, we have an expression in our industry that nuclear safety is like riding a bicycle: if you're not moving forward, you're falling off. You need to continuously move forward.

What we do at COG is look ahead. We identify where the aging mechanisms are likely to be, what the safety margins associated with those aging mechanisms are, and how we can get ahead of the problem as the fleet of reactors ages with time.

We have been very successful so far, because performance, 40-some-odd years later, continues to be very high. Our members in turn—OPG, Bruce Power, and New Brunswick—can then use this information as a mechanism for public discourse. It is they who would be engaging with the public in shaping public opinion, not so much the CANDU Owners Group.

With regard to the question around what we are doing to improve constructability, we're not involved in that. That is very much a design engineering issue with companies such as SNC-Lavalin that are marketing the new reactors, and we don't become involved in that. We become involved as soon as they're into the commissioning and operation phase. At that point, we are involved and help to provide support through collaboration.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I'll pass this over to my colleague Cheryl.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

Welcome back to you both.

Lianne, the last time you were here you talked about the “valley of death” for the development of technologies. That phrase stuck with the committee for months, even beyond the current study we were on. Would you please tell this committee, first of all, what the valley of death is and then describe what we still need to do as a government to bridge that gap?

[Lianne Ing]

Thanks for the question, Cheryl.

When we speak about the technology valley of death, we're talking about the gap that exists between funding that supports research and then somehow bridging that to actually exploiting commercial value out of the technology: bringing it to market, selling it within Canada, and as well exporting it. For many years in Canada, there was simply no funding mechanism that would help a company make that leap from research to commercialization.

In the last few years, the government has introduced PSPC's build in canada innovation program, which is specifically geared toward taking high-maturity technologies and providing funding so that federal agencies can try that Canadian technology at very little risk. The funding comes from PSPC. There's a match between a company with the new technology and a federal department, and the federal department acquires the technology through PSPC funding and then is able to test that technology. We've been able to use that program with such groups as the RCMP and the Canadian Department of National Defence to get them to try some of the new radiation detection technologies that we've developed at Bubble Tech.

That is a single program, which is certainly a move in the right direction. It takes you to that first sale, but doesn't really follow through or provide long-term support for subsequent sales.

I think in Canada one of the difficulties has always been—particularly in our sector, defence and security—that we're obviously very heavily involved with many other NATO allies, and sometimes it's easy to just tag along with what other people are buying without taking a good, hard look at home-grown technologies that may be best in class and need that opportunity to get utilized by a customer in the market.

One thing we would love to see is just more opportunities where the Canadian government is really taking a good, hard look at Canadian technologies, and, where the merit is there, where the technology is solid, to really be a leader by adopting the technology and being able to demonstrate that Canadian technology in real-field applications.

For us, when we go to export overseas, one of the first questions we receive from any other foreign government is who else is using this? Is your own government using this? For many years we would have to say, well, the Americans are using it, or various groups in Europe are using it, but it's a difficult position to be in. You'd like to be able to say that your own government has selected your equipment and can provide references. I think that's one of the key things the government can do in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

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

Thank you for coming here today.

I'll start with you, Ms. Ing, and follow up on that line. You mentioned PSPC and other government programs that are helping SMEs bridge that “valley of death”. One of them, I believe you mentioned, was SR and ED. I've heard from other SMEs that negotiating the bureaucracies, application processes, and reporting processes on SR and ED is really beyond the capacity of some small companies. Have you been there, and how might you advise the government to improve on that?

[Lianne Ing]

We've used the SR and ED program for many, many years. As a small company, we're somewhat unusual because we started our company doing a lot of work in defence and space research. We developed expertise in navigating government forms and applications fairly early in the company's existence, but we can certainly appreciate from many small businesses that those processes might be considered quite daunting.

From our perspective, the thing that we appreciate about the SR and ED tax incentive program is that it does not try to pick a winner in terms of a research area. It allows small companies to decide for themselves, on their own business cases, what sort of research makes sense. From our standpoint, we think that's a very important feature of that program. It is very difficult to predict what is going to be the next disruptive technology. It is disruptive because people aren't expecting it to happen. When government tries to pick winners by focusing funding into very specific technology selections, there's a possibility that you end up undermining a small company that might be on the verge of some remarkable breakthrough. We think the SR and ED tax incentive program is very good in that it allows us to decide what sort of research we think our company should pursue.

One of the things that's been rolled back over the last couple of years in SR and ED is coverage over things like capital expenditures. There are, as far as we can tell, almost no grant programs from the Canadian government that support capital expenditures associated with research. We think that's an oversight. A lot of research is very capital-equipment-intensive. It requires investment by small businesses in sometimes expensive new technologies, and having no support for capital expenditures does make it difficult for companies to compete in the high-tech sector.

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

Moving to Mr. Dermarkar, you mentioned that COG did some post-Fukushima work. I'm just wondering if you could expand on that and what you think of Canada's position in terms of modelling a Fukushima-like event at one of the CANDU reactors—how that response might look, and how we're prepared for that.

[Fred Dermarkar]

Thank you for the question.

Immediately after the event happened on March 11, 2011, through the CANDU Owners Group we formed a group called the CANDU industry integration team. This was a group of leaders from all the utilities, both domestic and international. We started to identify and build a strategy toward responding to the event, based on the best information we had at the time. As more information came out, we fine-tuned our strategy. Through the CANDU industry integration team we also had a mechanism for having a dialogue with the regulator. We kept the regulator informed of the direction in which we were heading, and the regulator in turn kept us informed of where their expectations were also heading. So we maintained a dialogue but still independence between regulator and operator.

Because we were working together as a group, we were able to have different utility members of that group participate in different international forums, so we were able to cast a large net that captured what the international community was doing and bring it back into the COG community. Then we tuned it to our particular technology.

The CANDU reactor has some inherent features that are excellent for the kind of event that happened at Fukushima. The most notable of these is that, unlike any other power reactor, the CANDU reactor essentially sits in a pool of cold, low-pressure heavy water that's about 250 tonnes, and then is surrounded by another pool of cold light water that's about 500 tonnes. So if there were a loss of power, you have immediately 750 tonnes of cold water right there that helps to mitigate the progression of the accident. We leveraged that and identified what additional mitigation strategies we could put into place to significantly or indefinitely prolong the cooling to the reactor should the primary and backup systems fail, as they did at Fukushima.

We built a whole new line of defence in depth based on portable equipment that could be brought in, easily and quickly connected, to feed those water systems that were already there that were keeping the reactor cool, and because of the design of the CANDU reactor, we had quite a bit more time available to bring in that portable equipment. We leveraged that, so we built that into the strategy. I believe we have a very solid base now for being able to say that if there is any kind of unexpected event, we have multiple different ways, not only within the plant but by bringing in portable equipment from outside the plant, to terminate the event earlier, before it progresses into a severe accident.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Ms. Ing, my question is for you. I'm very interested in the potential of nuclear energy, but I'm also interested in the dangers it poses and the great work that firms such as yours are doing to guard against those dangers.

Just a few months ago, the Prime Minister pledged $42 million to global efforts to secure nuclear materials from terrorists. Al Qaeda and Daesh and other groups have been quite open about their interest in securing access to nuclear materials for all sorts of purposes, ones that we should be very concerned about. Government, however, can't do everything on its own.

With that in mind, I was reading about your FlexSpec backpack, this portable radiation detection system. First of all, how does it work? More importantly, for the purposes of the Canadian population, how is it used by law enforcement agencies to counter potential nuclear terrorism threats?

[Lianne Ing]

Thank you for your question.

Our company designs and builds various radiation detection products. The FlexSpec backpack is one of them. It is a portable device that fits into an innocuous-looking backpack and runs off a smartphone. Law enforcement users will typically wear this—

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Sorry, did you say it runs off of a smartphone?

[Lianne Ing]

Well, it connects to a smartphone to provide the user interface. There's a small single-board computer that runs inside the device and does all the heavy lifting for computation.

Law enforcement personnel will wear this system. They will often be doing this in a plainclothes scenario. When there's a large event with a crowd of people, for instance, they can easily walk through and amongst the crowd, and the system is constantly looking for any indications of elevated radiation levels. Importantly, it also is able to discriminate between different types of radiation. You can have many innocent or legitimate sources of radiation, like people who have had a nuclear medical procedure. It can differentiate between that type of radiation and the type of radiation that might be associated with a weapon.

It's one example of many different types of products that are used by law enforcement that use mobile systems, airborne systems, and systems that are mounted on maritime vessels. The goal is simply to try to increase the probability of detection of illicit materials, preferably before they can be assembled into any kind of a threat, and be able to then intercept those materials before anyone can deploy them.

In the United States, for example, after 9/11 there was a recognition that threats such as nuclear threats, as well as chemical and biological attacks, were things that law enforcement needed to be concerned about. In the intervening years, there has been a heavy investment to equip regular law enforcement agencies with this type of equipment so that they can assist with carrying out that type of detection mission.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I'm interested in the number of law enforcement agencies that are using this. Is it just Canada and the U.S. that have turned to this? Could you speak on that?

[Lianne Ing]

Sure. Without going into specific customers, there are law enforcement agencies across North America, in Europe, and in Asia that use this sort of equipment. It's becoming increasingly prevalent.

The United States tends to be an early adopter of this type of technology. They have very strong budgets that go into Homeland Security programs. The federal government in the United States will provide grants from the federal level that will flow down to state and local law enforcement groups, specifically to equip those groups with this type of specialty equipment.

We've seen an increase in this type of equipment purchase overseas in places like China, India, Japan, and South Korea.