Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 11th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

I dismissed his point of order. There was no point of order.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

You have 21 seconds left in your remarks, Mr. Tochor. Please continue.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

There we have it. For all the Canadians watching, the cover-up of what is happening in the selling out of our technology is laid bare. We have two hours today to find out the answers to why this is happening.

I look forward to the rest of the committee and to having questions answered in my future rounds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor.

Before we go to Mr. Danko, I want to welcome some new members to the committee.

Ms. Gallant, Mr. Gourde and Monsieur Bonin, welcome. As you can tell, it's a very friendly committee, for the most part, even on the most contentious of issues.

With that, Mr. Danko, you have six minutes.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I'll start from the beginning. You mentioned that AECL is a Crown corporation. Can you explain for the record what exactly is a Crown corporation, what its role is within the federal government, and in the context of this contract, what separation there is between AECL and the federal government in approving the award of this contract?

[Fred Dermarkar]

Thank you for that question.

A Crown corporation is created through an act of Parliament. Its primary intent is to pursue, on commercial terms, activities that are strategically important to the government or activities where private industry may choose not to engage because they're not profitable but continue to be of strategic importance.

The way AECL operates today is at arm's length from government. In this particular procurement process, AECL has a board of directors that works in accordance with the Financial Administration Act, and its internal governance is aligned with the requirements of that act.

In the context of this procurement, AECL's independently nominated board of directors, with all of them being Governor in Council appointments, approved the procurement plan. They also approved the request for proposals and the form of the contract, and they ultimately approved the selection of the successful bidder.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

Just to be clear, AECL is a non-partisan organization with the sole authority to award this contract independent of the federal government.

[Fred Dermarkar]

That is correct, and we did so completely independently of government.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

For this specific contract, you spoke a little bit about it in your opening remarks, but I want to dig into this a little bit deeper.

What is the purpose of this contract in the context of what the consortium is doing? What are the benefits to Canadians and the Canadian nuclear industry? What was evaluated as part of the award process such that this was the consortium that we wanted to go with?

[Fred Dermarkar]

AECL operates a very complex business. As I indicated in my remarks, we have sites spanning across the country. A lot of those sites have legacy nuclear material that is the responsibility of the government, and it's different depending on where you go.

A big part of AECL's obligation and spending is in the cleanup of that legacy nuclear material, which goes back decades. In addition to that, we have a lab facility that undertakes complex and really important research for the Government of Canada, but also undertakes to do work on a commercial basis.

You can picture how complex those operations are. They're broad and we're dealing with very sensitive material. Our primary focus is on safety, security and environmental protection.

The United States operates 17 labs that are very similar in the scope and complexity of their work, and they have been using a GOCO model for decades, and very successfully so. The government, as a policy decision, more than 10 years ago, decided that it wanted to tap into that expertise, recognizing the very unique nature of AECL's operations. It said, let's tap into the private sector expertise that's been developed in the United States to manage the U.S. Department of Energy facilities. Therefore, we created a model that is quite similar to what was developed there so that we could tap into that expertise. We have one organization; they have 17 labs. It was an opportunity to tap into the breadth and depth of that capability.

The management and operating contract that we have with NLPC not only gives us access to the leadership, but also gives us access to what we call “reach-back resources”. If there's a particular project going on that has a particularly unique aspect to it, those parent companies can reach back into their stable of expertise and experience and bring those resources to Canada.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

I think I probably have about a minute left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

You have 42 seconds.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I'm going to start this question, but you probably won't have time to finish.

On the RFP process, you said that, initially, there were nine interested bidders. That came down to two qualified bidders.

Can you quickly explain the expertise needed for this type of work, and is it unusual in the industry to have a limited number of contractors capable of providing the services?

[Fred Dermarkar]

The short answer is that it is very unique expertise. We're talking about nuclear cleanup. There's not a lot of nuclear cleanup that goes on. We're talking about decommissioning. Every building we have has unique decommissioning challenges. It depends on what kind of activity was going on in that building.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

We have Monsieur Bonin joining us. As you know, he's not a voting member, but he can ask questions.

Mr. Bonin, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us.

Mr. Dermarkar, spent fuel was shipped from Gentilly‑1 in Quebec to Chalk River in Ontario. Newspaper articles say that some municipalities and emergency services may not have been informed. Can you tell us whether all municipalities along the route used to ship the spent fuel were informed? Did you inform everyone who could potentially have been affected by an accident, emissions, spills into waterways or any other possible effects?

[Fred Dermarkar]

Thank you for the question. I'll answer in English.

It's important to recognize, first, why we are undertaking this activity. We have very sensitive nuclear—

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Dermarkar, since I don't have much time, could you answer the question directly, please?

[Fred Dermarkar]

Okay.

We inform communities along the way that we are shipping the material. The precise timing of when that material will be shipped needs to be kept confidential and outside of the media, so as not to unnecessarily risk any security issues.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Could you send the committee a list of the municipalities that you notified?

[Fred Dermarkar]

I'll ask Ms. Pagé to include the French items in my reply.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay, but I'm satisfied with your response.

Would it be possible to send the committee a list of the municipalities that you notified about shipping the spent fuel from Gentilly‑1?

[Maude-Émilie Pagé, Acting Vice President, Indigenous and Stakeholder Relations, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited]

We've held extensive consultations and made commitments to municipalities in the vicinity of Bécancour and Chalk River for a number of years.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I apologize for interrupting, but I'd like to clarify my question.

I'm talking about the route used to ship the spent fuels between the two municipalities. You say that you informed all the municipalities. Could you give us a list of the municipalities that were informed and the risks that were brought to their attention?