Public Safety Committee on Nov. 9th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much, sir.

To complete this round of questions, we'll move over to the government's side.

Mr. Norlock, please.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today. It's been very enlightening to hear your testimony so far with regard to the questions you've been asked.

My question builds on Mr. Sanderson's relating the four pillars of preparedness, and it's directed primarily toward Mr. Pereira and Mr. Frappier. It has to do with preparedness, beginning with the licensing and re-licensing of facilities that come under your purview.

Mr. Pereira, when you license or are in the process of renewing licensing, do you review the complete or the total operation of the facility with regard to the licensing, or do you concentrate on historical, shall we say, areas of concern?

[Ken Pereira]

We review the entire spectrum of parameters that cover the operation of a facility, including security and including emergency management. It is a comprehensive review covering all aspects of what contributes to safe operation of the facility.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

When the re-licensing and licensing occurs in some communities, of course, we look at the community as a whole and then we go further abroad. My question has to do once again with emergency preparedness, but it directly relates to the local community's ability to respond to negative occurrences or possible negative occurrences. It goes toward the mitigation and preparedness aspect of emergency preparedness.

When you're re-licensing, is the ability of the emergency services—fire, police, ambulance, etc.—of a local community taken into account when the re-licensing occurs?

[Ken Pereira]

Our mandate concerns the operation of a nuclear facility, so we have direct control over what the licence holder does. In issuing licences, we seek from the licensee an assurance that there is sufficient capacity to respond to an emergency. The licensee has to provide an assurance to the commission that the appropriate measures are in place to respond to all emergencies. That includes, on their part, interacting with the local authorities to ensure that there is capacity to back them up in a response to and emergency. If they aren't able to give that assurance, then the operator or the licensee has to put measures in place to cover off all the emergencies that could arise on the facility itself.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So that I can clearly understand what you're saying, when you're re-licensing, it's the responsibility of the licensee to respond to you. In other words, with regard to the licence application, they must include in their response what exactly the capabilities of local communities are. In other words, you don't do that directly, but you do it indirectly by having the licensee advise you that this is their capability vis-à-vis the regulatory framework under which they operate, and they and community are submitting to you.... They would then specify why they think the community is able to respond appropriately to negative scenarios.

[Ken Pereira]

That is correct. Then, by virtue of exercises and drills, which we would witness, there will be a demonstration of how that composite response is being delivered.

[Dr. Jim Young]

Could I perhaps add to that answer?

The province is very involved. Obviously a province like Ontario is very involved in nuclear, nuclear safety, and nuclear emergency planning. It constitutes a large part of what Emergency Management Ontario does, because they recognize the risk versus if something really does happen.

They work very closely with the regulatory agency. They consult on a regular basis on all matters, including the matters that we earlier described, the physical safety, etc. When it comes to the community, Emergency Management Ontario works very closely with the community on early warning systems, distribution of KI pills, all of the evacuation procedures, etc. Those are mandated within those areas, and the municipal plans in those areas have to be up to a higher standard because of the existence of nuclear reactors. The province, in approving those municipal plans, works with those municipalities to ensure that those elements are in fact done. The province holds the role of what happens outside the gate and the operator looks after what happens inside the gate. That's the way we generally think of things.

In addition, if a province like Ontario had concerns about the emergency planning, they would make those known and do make them known. They go to all of the hearings and they participate actively in all of the hearings as well. So there are a number of ways in which this comes in not just through the operator but in fact through the province.

[Chuck Sanderson]

May I make a comment on that?

It's a really interesting discussion that you're having, and it's focusing right now on one industry and a particular threat, basically. I would like to just say what I think this discussion is and how it relates to Bill C-12 and how it relates to a mandate of PSEPC.

There is a thing called critical infrastructure assurance out there. It's a new term, but basically there are approximately ten sectors out there that depend on each other, and we depend on them. When one sector goes down for some reason, other cascading effects happen in other sectors.

A lot of work needs to happen in this country in bringing sectoral leaders together to ensure that sectors that include such things as nuclear, which would probably be under the sector heading of utilities, are actually linked at the national level; that those leaders are sitting at a table, talking about assurances of protection, assurances of standards, those types of things.

There has to be an entity at the national level that brings this together, that has the weight and the mandate to do that. That's what provinces and territories are looking for in Bill C-12 through PSEPC. From a larger critical infrastructure sector perspective, the kinds of questions you're asking of the nuclear industry are specific and need to come to the table at a larger level. I think Bill C-12 has the capacity to do that, to put PSEPC in a leadership position to bring that together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you, Mr. Sanderson.

Mr. Norlock, do you have a supplementary question?

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Yes, if I have any time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

This will have to be the final question.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I wouldn't say this directly relates to an emergency, but an emergency can be classed in many different ways.

This question is in regard to the re-licensing of facilities, and so on, but even in a broader context, and it sort of goes toward the area that Mr. Ménard was speaking about, which is not directly related to a nuclear reactor but with regard to emissions from either nuclear facilities or companies that manufacture components and material that go into nuclear reactors. I'm given to understand--and Mr. Frappier or Mr. Pereira can answer this, and perhaps even Dr. Young--that Canadian standards with regard to emissions from those companies that produce materials that go into a radioactive power plant exceed, actually, international emission standards. We require a compliance to international standards, but I'm given to believe and I am advised that Canadian industry actually surpasses those, I would not say exponentially, but significantly.

Could you make a comment in that regard?

[Ken Pereira]

I do not believe the standards we have in place in Canada are more lax than anything that is in other countries. We are up to international standards. We strive to implement requirements that are on par or better than what is in place elsewhere in the world.

In fact, our environmental protection standards are better than most other countries, and from our oversight of the nuclear industry, we do not believe there's any operator that is exceeding the licence requirements on environmental emissions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Dr. Young, do you have a comment?

[Dr. Jim Young]

I would just say, again, if I go back to my provincial experience, the province, for example, paid close attention to issues like that. Nuclear enrichment in the Cameco plant in the Port Hope area, for example, was something we watched very closely. Chalk River we watch very closely.

Post-9/11, all these issues certainly came to the attention of governments at all levels--municipal, provincial, and federal. A lot of work has been done. So I can assure the committee that close attention is being paid to these matters.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll now begin our second round of questioning, with the Liberal Party.

Ms. Fry, please.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

There are two points on which I want to get some more information.

I note that we talked a lot about the five points, but I think there are six points. If you look at your preamble, one of the pieces in emergency management is prevention. I would like to hear about prevention. I would like to hear the plans for prevention.

If we remember Hurricane Katrina, one of the biggest problems was that it was a preventable catastrophe, and no one moved to prevent it. In my province of British Columbia, there is a catastrophe that could occur, which is a large earthquake, and there has been no move at all to look at this from a prevention perspective, of making sure we're prepared for this in a way that we could prevent as much damage as we can, especially to human life, and especially schools.

So I want to hear about prevention. Mr. Pereira, I want to hear your plans for prevention, and I would like to hear Dr. Young's issues on prevention with regard to biological emergencies.

The second piece I want to ask about is the issue of municipalities. I'm going to go back there again, because in Vancouver our experience in SARS was extremely good. The reason it was extremely good is that the municipalities took a lead role.

While I understand that municipalities are children of the provinces, and so on, I really don't see whether there is a problem in this bill with adding the words “and other stakeholders”, which could include municipalities in cases where the municipalities may have a very significant role to play and may want to be a first point of contact in an emergency where minutes count.

So I'd like to hear your answers, all of you, on both of those pieces, on adding the term “stakeholders” to the language in the act and on the issue of prevention.

[Dr. Jim Young]

To start with the second question, then, I think the term in clause 3--if I can look at the exact word--is “entities”, rather than “stakeholders”. When I read that, I think entities means stakeholders. I'm not quibbling over words, but when I read that it means, to me, municipalities, it means non-governmental agencies, it means private industry, and critical infrastructure. It means all of those. Whether it's stakeholders or whether it's entities I would leave up to the drafters and to you people, but to my mind, that's what that means.

In regard to your earlier points, when we talk about the terms “mitigation” and “prevention”, you can either drive them apart or you can use them simultaneously. There are subtle differences within the industry between mitigation and prevention, but essentially, for the purposes of the discussion today, when we talk about mitigation we mean prevention. And we agree that Katrina is an excellent example.

Mr. Sanderson can talk about the great success story of mitigation when we talk about the water diversion system around Winnipeg. Some of the work that has been done on the west coast, I'm sure you're aware, includes...for example, when one worries about earthquakes, then you incorporate mitigation into the building code. You build buildings that are safer and withstand shocks to a greater amount. There are many other things you can do as well, but it's that type of action, in fact, that is being discussed and is being taken.

Can there and should there be more mitigation done? Absolutely. We need to look at flood plains. We need to look at the risk of severe storms on the east coast, earthquakes on the west coast, tsunamis on both coasts.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm sorry, I didn't want to cut into your answer, but I actually think that the issue of mitigation and prevention are two different things when you look at earthquakes, looking at it from my perspective as a physician and having looked at public health over the long term. In the case of mitigation, it's having public building codes now in terms of an earthquake, but there are whole hosts of schools, for instance, in British Columbia that were built 30 or 40 years ago that aren't up to standard, and to bring them up to standard is going to take an infusion of money now. I want to hear people talking about that kind of prevention, not simply leaving it up to the fact that new buildings are being built with building codes. There will be children in those buildings, and when an earthquake is going to occur, you don't get a warning like they did with Katrina.

[Dr. Jim Young]

I think we're saying the same thing. You could include that under mitigation, going back and fixing something. I'm only using as one example that one way of doing earthquakes is to do building codes. But in some provinces, Ontario for example, I had responsibility for the fire marshal. The fire marshal had the fire code, the fire code talked about retrofits, and we did retrofits for public safety. What you find with retrofits is that they're expensive and difficult and they're very difficult to finance, but you're talking about retrofitting and there is much merit in retrofitting as well.

I think all of us in the field feel the whole area of mitigation and prevention has been underdeveloped, not only in Canada but around the world. The estimates are that the minimum payback for mitigation is at least six times in savings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Sanderson, do you have a comment? Dr. Young mentioned that you might have had experience with mitigation in Manitoba. Do you have any comments you'd like to make?

[Chuck Sanderson]

Well, the Red River floodway is the poster child of mitigation in Canada. There is a lot of mitigation activity that can take place that isn't quite that grandiose. In fact, we've been working at the federal-provincial-territorial level to try to create a national disaster mitigation program and strategy.

Back to Bill C-12, somebody at the federal level needs to take the reins of that and make it a reality, because as we just heard, there are pieces of mitigation and preparedness, as in reinforcing existing schools built before building codes were changed, and that has to happen at a national level. A Bill C-12 mandate for PSEPC to drive a national disaster mitigation strategy is what we're looking for at the provincial level, so that when there's a national program on disaster mitigation, then the provinces and territories can cut in with their piece of the action.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to the Bloc Québécois, Ms. Bonsant, please.