Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 27th, 2026

[Eric McGoey]

Absolutely.

It was interesting that Mr. Aplin said that he's comfortable using “Chalk River” and “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories” interchangeably. That's a fair point in terms of the future of the organization. If we're looking at 20 years from now, it's very likely that the only site that will continue to be operated by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is the site at Chalk River. It has a science and technology mission that is going forward for many decades.

At the rest of the sites, the mission is, as Mr. Hendrickson said in the previous testimony, decommissioning and waste management. That is to say, we have legacy waste associated with the development of Canada's nuclear sector, of which we're all rightfully proud, and we must clean up those demonstration reactors. There are nuclear project demonstration reactors north of Chalk River. There is the Douglas Point demonstration reactor in Bruce County, the Gentilly-1 reactor near Bécancour, as well as Whiteshell, near Pinawa in Manitoba. All of those reactors need to be safely decommissioned in order to free up the land for future use at those different sites. In the case of Gentilly-1, that site is owned by Hydro-Québec. We need to restore the land and give it back to Hydro-Québec so they can use it for whatever priorities matter to them.

We'll have different potential uses at the different sites based on engagement with indigenous nations, local communities and stakeholders, potentially for economic development, tourism, recreation or new brownfield sites. It's all going to depend on what we work out in partnership, of course recognizing that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited owns the land.

If you look at where most of a dollar is spent, for every dollar we get from AECL, most of it goes to addressing those legacy environmental issues. The rest of what we do is the science and technology mission.

As Canada's national nuclear laboratory, any time the Government of Canada has any questions involving anything nuclear or radioactive, we do that work for you. If the CNSC wants to know about new limits and look at the human impact of radiation, we would do that work on behalf of the Government of Canada. If we wanted to look at potentially using targeted alpha therapy and radiological medicine, we do that work. As well, we do a lot of commercial work supporting the existing CANDU fleet to make sure we continue to generate emissions-free power across the country.

[Claude Guay, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Mr. McGoey, you talked about you and your colleagues and how it's actually a multinational team.

[Eric McGoey]

That's correct.

[Claude Guay, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

It sounds like it's not only Americans, but Canadians. You mentioned Brits.

Do we benefit, as a country, from that expertise? In what way?

[Eric McGoey]

I think we do benefit.

There are many questions about the contract itself that are best answered—and in fact were answered—by leadership from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. However, one of the really important ways in which our bids were evaluated, or the bid that I worked on was evaluated, was that they wanted Canadian experience in key areas. They wanted subject matter expertise on decommissioning waste management, science and technology, health and safety, and so on. They also wanted GOCO experience.

I think it's really important to remember that there is only one GOCO contract in Canada. It's this one. Since the incumbents who had the contract for the last 10 years did not come back as a consortium to bid again, if you want GOCO experience, you're going to have to look outside of Canada.

The way the contract was written guaranteed that we were going to have people from outside of Canada who were subject matter experts and could bring that GOCO expertise, while other members of the team, like myself, would be providing the Canadian experience, although there certainly are some members of the team whose citizenship is American but who have very strong Canadian experience. Our chief operating officer, Len Clewett, worked at Bruce Power for many years before being the chief nuclear officer over at SaskPower. He has very strong Canadian experience. Our VP of construction worked at Chalk River Laboratories earlier in her career.

The idea that to be American is to be incapable of loyalty to CNL is something I reject. I also reject the idea that to be American by citizenship means you can't have Canadian experience. I know that not to be true.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, both.

We are going to move on.

We'll now go to Mr. Simard.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Not to disagree with my friend Claude Guay—I like him very much—but I don't think we're getting into conspiracy theories here.

If I'd been told two and a half years ago that our relationship with the Americans would look like this today, I would've said it was a conspiracy theory. From a geopolitical standpoint, we know that—

Can you hear me, Mr. Aplin?

[Stephen Aplin]

I can't.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Okay.

We should take a few moments to solve the issue, because I'll have a question for him. I apologize, I should have started with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

We've stopped your time, Monsieur Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

You should be hearing the harmonious voice of our interpreters, not my regional MP voice. Is that what you're hearing?

It's not working?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Is it working for you, Mr. Aplin?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Can you hear the interpreters? No? We have a bit of an issue then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Can we get some help from the technicians, please?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

It's an American conspiracy.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[A voice]

Probably.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

It seems to be working now.

I was saying earlier that we're far from a conspiracy theory, because if I'd been told two or three years ago that our relations with the Americans would look the way they do today, I wouldn't have believed it.

Given the context, I understand what you meant in your opening remarks, Mr. Aplin, especially the parallel you made with uranium enrichment, if I'm not mistaken, something the Americans won't allow us to do.

Therefore, I can see how the control of an American company over a significant part of our nuclear capabilities could have an impact on the future development of new avenues of research, such as waste management. I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

Now, we don't know what's in the contract, because we haven't seen it, but what do you think the future outcomes and consequences could be if a foreign company were in charge of everything in the contract? Could that significantly slow down research? Could this raise security issues in terms of waste management?

[Stephen Aplin]

Could it put the brakes on research? Yes, it could. In my professional experience with them, Americans are not happy that we developed CANDU. They don't like it. They raise a number of what I consider to be phoney proliferation concerns about it. Would they have all that much interest in pursuing...? There's further research we could do with CANDU. I've talked about enriched fuel. If we had slightly enriched fuel with CANDU, there's amazing stuff we could do with that. Are American competitors interested in seeing us pursue those research avenues? I would say, probably not.

You don't need Donald Trump to come to that conclusion. They've never been all that interested. I don't know that the GOCO has done all that much interesting research into CANDU at all since its inception.

Could they block or halt research that would benefit Canada? Of course they could. I'm not saying they would. There's just no interest south of the border in our fuel technology, and likely very little interest in anything having to do with waste management.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. McGoey, I understand what you mean about how a contract guarantees a certain way of doing things. We also learned, and this was in the Prime Minister's speech in Davos, that too often nowadays, individual interests take priority over contract compliance. We see it in international trade. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen.

I'd like to know what kind of research is being done. You talked about nuclear medicine, but I assume things could also be used in the defence sector, to protect Canada's north. I assume all these elements are protected in some way. Is that correct?

[Eric McGoey]

Yes, absolutely. From a defence perspective, Canada only uses nuclear technology to produce energy and for peaceful purposes. We don't have nuclear bombs or missiles, so when we talk about Canada's defence, as my colleague Mr. Aplin was saying, it's more about defending the north using small modular reactors, for example.

Also, there's research being done on various types of fuels. There's talk about TRISO fuel, an advanced and enriched fuel that could be used to power small reactors to help northern bases or communities with—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Here's what I really want to know.

How are those intellectual properties protected?

[Eric McGoey]

They're protected on several levels. There are laws on export controls. All of us, for example, including my American colleagues, are prohibited from sharing the information found on nuclear laboratories information systems on websites or servers—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If I understand correctly, some of your American colleagues have access to that information. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.