Science and Research Committee on June 9th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have a minute and a half, please.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Chair, I would support extending the time if we could, stealing time from the next panel perhaps, just to maintain peace in the house.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Is that what you would like?

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Okay, that means you may lose it from the next panel. The reason we lost time here is that people were talking.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I can’t hear anything, Madam Chair. There’s no interpretation right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Could you repeat that, please? There was no interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Okay. If we take it from this panel, we're going to lose it from the next panel. Does everybody agree to that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I’d like to address Mr. Edwards again.

Mr. Edwards, could you come back to the issue of waste management? Are there any other critical aspects we should know on the subject?

[Dr. Gordon Edwards]

One of the greatest difficulties is how to prevent chemical reactions from occurring along the intermediate-level waste. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, there was a drum that exploded and turned into a flame-thrower. Radioactive dust went 750 metres up the shaft and contaminated 22 workers. This is because of chemical reactions. Chemical reactions can occur that then spread radioactive waste. This is a big problem over the long term.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much.

In your last answer, you mentioned the issue of environmental studies. Currently, small modular reactors—that’s every single project—are not subject to any environmental studies.

Can you tell us more about the lack of measures for studying small modular reactors?

[Dr. Gordon Edwards]

I think what we're seeing here is that the industry is coming to the government asking for accommodation to speed up the process so that they can get on with their private money-making job and also do, as they say, something about climate change. The problem is that they can't do anything about climate change for the next decade, so they want the money now, and they want to speed it up. One of the ways of doing that is to cut out environmental assessment—because democracy is too expensive; it slows you down too much, so let's not be democratic, and let's just move ahead and put the technology in place.

This has never been the case in Canada before. Nuclear projects always were subject to federal environmental assessment.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

I’ll give Ms. Gigantes a chance to comment.

You were rather frank. At the outset, you mentioned that nuclear energy is not the answer to the energy transition and carbon neutrality.

Can you enlighten us further with your point of view?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Ms. Gigantes, give a short answer, please.

[Evelyn Gigantes]

I will make it short.

Currently, we know how to use renewables in ways across this country, with backup from hydro power, on a Canada-wide basis. We can do that when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. The schemes that have been developed both here and abroad to allow us to do that.... Canada is actually perfectly situated and granted the resources to do it with hydro as a backup.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Ms. Gigantes, and thank you Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

We will now go to Ms. Zarrillo for two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

I have a question for Ms. Gigantes and then I am going to move to Mr. Edwards to talk about the question I asked Mr. Saab earlier about planning for waste.

Ms. Gigantes, you mentioned energy efficiency efforts and actually changing human behaviour. This is something that my colleague, Mr. Cannings, talks about. Can you expand a little on how we are going to change human behaviour if we just pivot to a new energy source?

[Evelyn Gigantes]

I'm suggesting that what we do to replace the kinds of carbon-producing energy we have is to use renewables, but the cheapest source of new energy is when we cut back our use. For example, in the house I'm living in, we installed a geothermal unit in 2009, and it paid for itself within 10 years. Now the cost of electricity in this house—it's run on an electric current, that geothermal unit—is amazing. It's quite amazing. I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. It's a good investment.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you very much. I think we heard some pushes for heat pumps too in this testimony.

[Evelyn Gigantes]

Yes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Edwards, I mentioned abandoned oil wells and abandoned natural gas pipelines. Are you aware of any conversations that are happening in governments and industry around having to make accommodation now for what will be waste later?

[Dr. Gordon Edwards]

That's certainly important, because right now in Port Hope, Ontario, we have the largest municipal environmental cleanup in Canadian history—over $1 billion, or $1.2 billion—simply to retrieve a huge amount of radioactive waste that was dumped in the harbour. Hundreds of homes and roadways were built using this material. It was dumped in ravines and so on. Simply retrieving that waste and demolishing the buildings that were contaminated is a very expensive project. These monies should be put aside very early.

With the SMRs, it's a real problem as to who is really going to be responsible. Almost all of the promotional literature says nothing about who is responsible for the waste.