Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am not a supporter of the development of SMRs, either in Canada or anywhere else. The reason is that our weather over the last few years is giving us clear evidence that climate change is rapidly becoming a challenge to all life on this wonderful planet.
SMRs are being touted by the nuclear industry as a necessary part of slowing and containing climate change. I believe the complete opposite: I think the nuclear industry is trying to save itself from a downward spiral and is waging a desperate campaign to convince the public and elected representatives to invest massive public funds in an ill-placed effort to battle climate change through SMR development.
The fact is that here and abroad the best-informed scientists and economists are stating the obvious: The surest, least costly and quickest way to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten life on our earth is to limit our energy use through conservation measures, to use electricity as our major source of energy and to generate that electricity with renewable resources. In Canada, that means a combination of wind, solar, geothermal and hydro.
I have provided your committee with an article co-written by two experts, a Canadian and an American. It describes the way we can electrify our major energy usage while deftly shifting energy supply sources and meeting backup demand. I've also provided an article about the recent study by the David Suzuki Foundation that comes to the same conclusion. That's the positive part of what I'd like your committee to be ready to report.
There is also a negative part, which I hope you will consider and determine to report. Nuclear power is not an answer to any problem. Nuclear power has generated waste that threatens life and health wherever it is in use or has been in use. Its history both here and abroad is linked to preparation for war, and that history repeats itself to this day as we watch, pained and frightened by the terrible threat to nuclear reactor sites in Ukraine.
Here in Canada, we have scandalous nuclear waste piled up in places like Chalk River and Elliot Lake. We are engaged in the pretense that there will soon be a new nuclear waste management policy, which will deal with these kinds of awful, life-threatening messes. Meanwhile, the former chair of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission ensured that most SMRs would not even require an environmental impact assessment under the Impact Assessment Act of 2019 because he managed to arrange matters to ensure that most SMRs are not included on the project list associated with the act. It's an astonishing fact that most current Canadian SMR proposals will not be subject to any environmental review.
I've also provided a third article on the subject of the extraordinary levels of nuclear waste that would be generated by developing SMRs. It outlines the fact that per unit of energy produced, SMRs would produce much larger amounts of high-level nuclear waste than the much larger CANDU reactors.
To sum up, I believe that SMRs are unnecessary given that there are alternative methods of electrifying our energy sources, which will be much cheaper, faster, more flexible and environmentally acceptable, and the last thing this world needs is SMRs sold to countries where their existence would add to the dangers posed by terrorism and war.
Thank you.