Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 27th, 2026

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

You said it was a while ago.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I was able to figure it out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

It was just a few seconds. Okay.

I was hearing it, Mr. Tochor.

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

Okay.

This goes back to the transparency of awarding this contract. We haven't seen the contract itself. The minister hasn't appeared. We know that there are experts in the security field who have rung the bell that this is bad for Canada and bad for our sovereignty.

Then we have witnesses who come in and claim they have no association with the federal Liberals, but we find out through their LinkedIn profile that they have volunteered on campaigns in the past. We have jokingly said that we'd go for drinks when the cameras are off and have that further discussion. It adds to the issues we have with transparency when we're talking about how it would be good to have a conversation over a beer when the cameras are off.

This might be how Liberals operate in Canada, but I can tell you that Canadians are fed up. They're fed up with people saying one thing when their actions don't match those words. This is a prime example, when we sell out our Canadian nuclear labs to an all-American group that has connections to our Prime Minister. It stinks, and we need more study on this. I am very interested to see this report at the end and the recommendations on how we should be ripping up this agreement and starting over again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor and Mr. McGoey.

I'd like to welcome Ms. Chi to the committee. She is a Toronto MP and is replacing Corey Tochor as we wind down the meeting.

Our final speaker is Mr. Danko for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Like all of us, I've been doing my genuine best to follow the bouncing ball of the conspiracy theories here this afternoon. I'm not sure I can follow. I guess you have to be plugged into those networks to understand what they're talking about.

Mr. Aplin does make some very valid points about the current U.S. administration and the lack of the rule of law and lack of accountability in the United States under the current White House. It's a fascinating exchange, because recent polling shows that 49% of Conservatives support the Trump White House, 7% of Conservatives would not resist the American annexation of Canadian territory, and there's strong U.S. influence over the “freedom convoy” movement and the opposition leader's maple MAGA movement. It's been a very interesting day.

Mr. McGoey, I'll go back to you. I'll give you the last word and the last time here. Is there anything you wanted to add to set the record straight on the work you do, the benefits to Canadians and the overall integrity of your organization?

[Eric McGoey]

Thank you very much, Mr. Danko.

Through the chair, I apologize for my glibness earlier, when I referenced having a drink and talking about the Canada-U.S. relationship. It's a very serious issue. We're all impacted in different ways. One of my best friends from high school is in Minneapolis. We've talked regularly over the past few weeks, and what's happening there is absolutely horrific. I don't want to suggest that it's not a serious issue. It's certainly worthy of this committee's interest and hard work. I regret having been glib in that respect.

In terms of the work that we do at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, we take our mandate to deliver for Canadians very seriously. One of the most interesting things I find about CNL is that it doesn't really matter how much you support the nuclear industry or whether you believe there's going to be a future for nuclear as renewables get cheaper and battery storage gets better, because regardless of what happens at the national lab, if it were to shut down tomorrow, there would be a century's worth of environmental remediation and decommissioning work to do to restore that land to the state that Canadians would expect us to.

When I think about why I'm most proud to work at CNL, I think of decommissioning and waste management projects like the ones we did at Port Hope and Port Granby. You go to that facility near Darlington in the Durham region.... That was a hugely contaminated town, not just from the uranium refining that happened during the Second World War, although that was a big part of it, but also from the industrial sites that were left in really terrible shape. The Government of Canada reached an agreement with the municipality to clean up those highly polluted sites, and AECL delegated that work to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. We have spent years methodically cleaning up these very polluted industrial sites, these radiologically contaminated sites, and now we're at the point where we are giving back the waterfront to that community. We dredged the harbour. We built new parks on former industrial sites.

That's the kind of work that all of us Canadians can be proud of being done on our behalf by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, in addition to the exciting science and technology and things like targeted alpha therapy and the next generation of nuclear reactors.

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

Thank you.

Chair, I still have a little bit of time on the clock.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

You have 45 seconds.

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

Maybe just touch on the Canadian employment numbers. How many Canadians jobs are involved here?

[Eric McGoey]

When we're talking about Canadian Nuclear Laboratories proper, we have about 4,000 employees. That's spread over Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. If you talk about the companies that make up NLPC, which was awarded the contract to manage Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, we're talking about over 3,000 through BWXT Canada and nearly 1,200 through Kinectrics.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Thank you to our witnesses. There were some good, spirited exchanges, which we always welcome, but for the most part, they were respectful. Thank you for appearing today.

Colleagues, we are going to roll over into committee business now, which requires that we go in camera.

We'll suspend for just a few minutes while we get ready to go in camera.

[ Proceedings continue in camera]