Science and Research Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you to you both. We're grateful for your presentations and for you being here.

We'll go to President McBrearty. We're glad to have you back.

[Joseph McBrearty, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to once again appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that our operations at CNL take place on the unceded and unsurrendered traditional territories of numerous first nations across Canada. At CNL, we recognize the unique history, spiritual beliefs, cultural practices and languages of indigenous people in Canada. We appreciate the responsibility that they have as stewards of the environment.

My remarks today seek to inform the committee's study of international moon shot programs. The topic that I want to discuss is radiopharmacy or radioisotopes.

As Canada's national nuclear laboratory, CNL and our predecessor, AECL, have a deep and profound history of innovation. The first nuclear reaction outside of the United States took place at Chalk River Laboratories in 1946. At one time, we were home to the most powerful research reactor in the world. That period was marked by ambition, and that pioneering work produced groundbreaking feats of engineering, leading to the dawn of an industry that today employs over 76,000 people, to the construction of Canadian-made nuclear reactors around the world and to the delivery of over one billion treatments in the fight against cancer.

What brought the United States to the moon is the same spirit that led us to explore the mysteries of the atom. It was national ambition, aggressive research and development, bold leadership and, perhaps most of all, a real sense of urgency and the competitive instinct that says “we must be first”. When it comes to the research, production and processing of medical isotopes, we, for many decades, have led the way in Canada.

I do not think I am breaking any news to this committee when I say that over the years, that sense of urgency and purpose began to wane at Chalk River Laboratories. It wasn't until 2014, when we were given a new lease on life by the Government of Canada, that our scientists were once again able to aim higher and to think bigger. We asked ourselves this: What are we good at and what will improve the lives of everyday Canadians? What will put us on the map again as a company that can change the world? What is our moon shot?

Today, I am proud to say that CNL intends to win the global race to produce the rarest isotope on earth, a compound known as actinium-225. Simply put, we intend to help cure cancer.

It will come as no surprise to me if you have never heard of actinium-225. The isotope is so rare that the annual global production is less than a grain of sand. However, its unique properties have also made it one of the most sought-after isotopes in the world, and at CNL, we recognized that we were one of the few companies that could produce it.

Over the past three years, we have developed a small-scale generator that produces meaningful quantities of actinium for our studies and for our strategic partners, but we have bigger ambitions. We see an opportunity to build on our legacy in isotope production and processing, and we are now pursuing the construction of new facilities on or near our Chalk River campus that would establish a stable commercial supply for this valuable isotope. In fact, we have already signed a memorandum of understanding with a leading German biotech company as part of that effort.

I want to be clear. This is an enormous undertaking, and it will not be easy. It means that we must raise hundreds of millions of dollars. It requires a deep network of partners and suppliers, and to be frank, it comes with risk. One of our competitors, TerraPower, is backed by Bill Gates.

As every Canadian knows, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. If I had any advice for Canada, it would be to apply the same approach to innovation on a larger national scale. It would be to leverage the strategic resources we have in this country, including our vast national laboratory network, and use them collectively to focus on big and bold issues of national importance, to once again pursue projects that seem to be out of reach to us, to focus on what we do well as a nation and to unleash the scientific visionaries we have in this country. It means making tough decisions and leaving some projects behind, and it comes with risk, both political and financial. Most of all, it requires urgency.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to be here today. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so very much.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses. We're grateful for your time and expertise and for you joining us.

We're now going to our members, who are keen to ask you questions. This is a six-minute round.

We begin with Mr. Tochor tonight.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To start with, I'm going to talk a bit about cancer with BioCanRx. I'm a big supporter of pharmacological treatment for different diseases, including cancer, but changing gears a bit on the cancer side, where would the treatment of cancer be without isotopes and/or the diagnosis equipment that comes with nuclear science?

[Dr. John Bell]

I hate to admit it, but we'd be nowhere. I mean, we need the isotopes for imaging. Many kinds of therapies that are effective for cancer, especially if the disease is localized, require radioisotopes. I think the challenge in cancer, though, is that for most patients who come to the clinic with what we call widespread or metastatic disease, treatments like that are not really going to help, unfortunately. We have to try to find new approaches to treat people at the greatest risk of dying, those with metastatic disease.

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

I encourage you to continue your work on the moon shot aspect of things to hopefully find some additional cures and treatments for cancer. Thank you for being here tonight.

Switching gears, I'll go to CNL.

Mr. McBrearty, we're talking about moon shots, and I think you outlined that CNL was somewhat created out of the moon shot need in 1946 to study nuclear and all the potential of nuclear. One of the aspects I think about is missed opportunities and how much of a leader we were in the nuclear field with CANDU.

Can you unpack a bit what CANDU could have done for Canada? As much as it was a success story, I'm fearful that we've lost the opportunity to encourage more use of the CANDU reactor around the world.

[Joseph McBrearty]

Let me frame it by putting some stuff in perspective. Today, there are 19 CANDU reactors operating safely and reliably in Canada across two provinces. There are, I think, a total of 29 CANDU reactors operating across the world.

This is reactor technology that was born out of AECL well back in the 1950s and 1960s, and it took on a great need in the country. It should not be lost on folks in Ontario that 60% of the electricity produced in this province comes from CANDU reactors.

The reactors themselves are reliable and safe and have demonstrated, through operation by OPG and Bruce Power, very successful refurbishments that have kept this technology operating and providing clean, reliable power over the last several decades. It should be noted that these reactors continued to be produced even after the United States stopped most reactor production and construction after Three Mile Island.

The fact that you have safe, reliable reactors with CANDU is remarkable, to say the least, but it has also allowed us to spur into another more advanced industry with small modular reactors, which three provinces—New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan—are becoming heavily invested in. We know you cannot solve the decarbonization problem with renewables alone, so if you want to get off fossil fuels, you have to use nuclear. That's an established fact.

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

Yes, and we've heard witnesses in another study on SMRs say that if we're going to meet our emissions targets, we must have nuclear as part of the mix, so I appreciate those comments.

Earlier today, we heard testimony that research is slow and that on the SMR side, as much as it's moving seemingly in the right direction.... We had an announcement out of Ontario that was very supportive last week, but we are slower on the SMRs.

What can reduce the emissions? We heard in other testimony today about the importance of reducing emissions and that the technology is on the shelf. Would that technology be CANDU?

[Joseph McBrearty]

Certainly the technology could be CANDU for large-scale nuclear production, and it could be small modular reactors for more advanced or newer types of production. I should remind everyone that small modular reactor technology is, for the most part, existing technology that is present in the world today, but CANDUs are really the only large reactor designed in Canada that can provide a large amount of energy.

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

Perhaps you can give a bit more meat to the bone with respect to isotopes. Can you quickly explain what we are harvesting from the CANDUs today?

[Joseph McBrearty]

Today, we're harvesting the isotope of most importance from a cancer perspective. It is an isotope known as lutetium-177, which is being produced by the Bruce Power reactors. Lutetium-177 is a beta emitter. Similar to what I discussed with actinium, which is an alpha emitter, beta emitters target specific cancer tumours and cells.

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

Thank you very much. I believe I'm almost out of time.

I just want to pass along warm regards to everyone who works so hard at the CNL. Thank you so much for being here tonight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor.

Thank you, again, to all of our witnesses.

With that, we'll now go to Mr. Lauzon.

You have six minutes.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I'd like to thank all the witnesses with us today. They've made some great and very enriching speeches.

Dr. Rouleau, you piqued my curiosity when you talked about artificial intelligence. I understood that there's a connection between artificial intelligence and everything that happens in the brain. I'd like you to explain what artificial intelligence technology we'll be able to use to treat diseases that originate in the brain.

[Guy Rouleau]

The current technology is generating staggering amounts of data. Sequencing the first genome cost $30 billion and took 10 years, whereas now it would cost only $800 and take only a day.

AI can analyze the huge amounts of data generated in a lab. That's really where it comes in handy. We're now generating such vast amounts of data that it would be impossible to study and interpret them without artificial intelligence.

Among other things, artificial intelligence is helping to improve diagnosis and interpret tests. Therefore, it has a big role to play in medicine in general, and more specifically in neuroscience.

I'd also like to mention that the “Canadian flavour” of AI is copying the brain. Neuroscience and artificial intelligence go hand-in-hand. We've made a great deal of progress in AI because of the circuits and approaches we've mastered in neuroscience.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

What's the connection between neuroscience and robots that can diagnose diseases related to fairly intricate surgeries? What developments widely applied in health care could be even more widespread one day through medical technologies? Could such technologies be considered an ambitious program in Canada?

[Guy Rouleau]

There's no doubt that many technologies are used to do surgery. They're being developed at my institute and elsewhere. This could be an ambitious program, but I'm not an expert in that branch of medicine. For it to be an ambitious program, we would need a critical mass of people who are the world's best in the field. I don't know that community—

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you.

Now's your chance to tell us whether our government is investing enough in artificial intelligence: Could we do better in this area?

[Guy Rouleau]

Honestly, I'd say we can always do better. On our end, we interact a lot with various groups that do artificial intelligence. It has so many applications and it's an exploding field.

At our institute, a group of researchers is looking at multiple sclerosis to improve diagnosis and create algorithms for how to treat patients and how their disease will progress.

There's certainly a lot to do. At the institute, we're very interested in artificial intelligence for its medical applications.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you.

Dr. Michaud, you've talked a lot about light therapy, which has been an incredible revolution in terms of treatment. Is there any connection between light therapy and cancer prevention or detection?

[Dr. Stéphanie Michaud]

To my knowledge, there is no connection to cancer detection.

However, in terms of cancer prevention, I can tell you the following: A few months ago in the United States, clinical trials were held with people suffering from colorectal cancer. Before having surgery, this small group of 14 people received light therapy. Since then, they have all gone into complete remission.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

That's great. Thank you.

Dr. Bell, you talked about the importance of cancer detection. A hematoma is a clue for detecting the presence of cancer, but there are no such clues for some types of cancer.

Has your research allowed you to make advances in cancer detection in the absence of a hematoma that would be detected pre-treatment by x-ray or nuclear medicine?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. Lauzon, I'm sorry, but that's the end of your time. Perhaps you could ask Dr. Bell for a written answer to that.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

I will come back in the next round to ask my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lauzon.

Now we will go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.