Debates of Dec. 11th, 2007

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, today all parliamentarians here are confronting a bill that is dividing us deeply. We must ask ourselves two questions. Will we risk the lives of a few people or will we risk the possibility of serious consequences if these reactors are pressed into service? Might there be disastrous consequences for the environment and for people working at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited?

These are agonizing questions. We have asked many questions about this issue, but we have not received reassurance. What will guide us? Could we have a public health crisis on our hands that could result in lives lost?

My first questions are for the representatives of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Earlier, they told us that they had been given assurances that the reactor is safe. They said they conducted investigations and found that the reactor is working properly.

Why can nobody provide assurances to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission? Why has the Canadian commission's request not yet reached the commission to reassure us?

There have been delays. It seems that you have played with the law and the safety regulations that you are supposed to comply with.

I would like the representatives of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to provide assurances that the reactor is safe now. Can you tell us when you will be in a position to provide that sense of safety to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission?

[David F. Torgerson]

Mr. Chair, yes, I can provide the assurance that we will operate NRU safely. That is our number one task. There is nothing more important than operating NRU safely. We believe we can operate it safely.

We have made a safety case that says that we can operate that reactor safely with one pump hooked to the EPS. We operated it safely before when we had that pump hooked up to the EPS, so we are absolutely convinced that we can operate that plant safely.

I worked for 41 years in nuclear facilities and this is a safe facility. I have no hesitation to say that it is a safe facility and we can operate it safely.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am finding it difficult to hear the answer.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Excuse me. I believe another witness has arrived. Mr. Ken Petrunik, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and President of AECL Candu division.

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Petrunik.

The hon. member for Quebec.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, the representatives of Atomic Energy of Canada say that they submitted a safety case. To whom did they submit it? The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says that it did not receive it and that it cannot proceed with hearings.

Today, there was a letter from their organization; they have not received this application. Therefore, the case has not been submitted to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Why then are they telling us that there is an entire case that explains the context in which it would be safe?

[David F. Torgerson]

Mr. Chair, we have submitted an application to the CNSC for permission to operate the reactor with one pump hooked up to the EPS. The commission has taken that case under consideration and it has come back with some additional information that it would like AECL to provide.

We believe that we can operate the plant safely with just one pump hooked up to the emergency power supply. We have asked, in fact, the CNSC for a hearing of the commission in order to approve our case. We have submitted a case. It is simply that the CNSC has asked us some additional questions concerning the case.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like the President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to tell us about this application. That is not what I understood from the replies given by the President just now. She did not assure us that the case was complete and that they were ready to proceed with hearings.

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, it is important that I clarify matters somewhat.

When we talk about a safety case, we are talking about a complete safety case.

What we had discussed earlier was that on November 30, Mr. Howden said that AECL had discussed with him the situation of a single pump that at that point had been put aside as a possibility.

We did receive a letter from Mr. Torgerson on December 7 that asked the commission to come together. However, the commission will come together when it receives a licence amendment application. We have not received this. It is absolutely known what a licence amendment looks like. We have not received that.

As Mr. Torgerson has said, the safety case is not complete. AECL did supply a safety case application, but it was not complete. We need a complete safety application, and the commission does not have that in front of it. Then the staff has to analyze it.

I would like to re-emphasize what Mr. Howden said. There is a plan. This plan has been discussed between CNSC staff and AECL. We do know what is necessary, I believe. I think we both understand what is necessary. AECL is seeking to provide this information. The CNSC is continuing 24/7 to analyze this information.

I do not want to get into semantics. There is something called a safety case. There are guidelines for a safety case. The commission does know what a complete safety case looks like.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Just before we proceed to the next intervention by the hon. member for Quebec, I want to give the witnesses a chance to rearrange themselves, so that the AECL people can sit with each other. I do not want to set up two camps here, but people may want to talk to each other.

The hon. member for Quebec.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, we can see from what is happening that measures have never been put in place to avoid such events. This is very surprising, and it is alarming. Earlier, the president told us that Canada was a world leader and a model for the rest of the world. But it is as though they are working in a vacuum, without a safety valve.

Why was the licence for this 50-year-old reactor renewed? I know you asked Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to make certain upgrades, but it did not respond. It did not comply with the regulations and violated the law.

I would like the president to respond. Why were certain measures not put in place? Especially since the reactor has been in use for 50 years. Why was there no deadline for a response? You realized there was a problem after the fact, because you conducted an inspection. Now, we parliamentarians have been presented with a fait accompli. We have a bill before us that will go even further than the current act and further than the regulations. It is rather limiting for us not to have everything we need to feel confident to go ahead and adopt this bill, which will relieve you of all authority.

Why are there no measures in place? In future, what sort of measures should be taken so that people do not have to be called to appear like this on an emergency basis because we are faced with a very alarming situation?

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, I would like to say that this question is best answered by AECL.

On the question as to why the measures were not put into place when the licence was given in August 2006, the commission made its requirements absolutely clear and so those measures are clearly outlined in the licence. The question as to why these measures were not put into place when they said that they would do so is a question that should be answered by AECL.

[Brian McGee, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer]

Good evening, Mr. Chair. My name is Brian McGee and I am the chief nuclear officer for AECL.

The reactor operated safely up to and including the time of the reactor shutdown. We are completely confident of that and I believe that it is a matter of record that CNSC staff have agreed with that as well.

When the apparent disconnect between the physical plant and the licensing basis and the safety case were brought to our attention, it was imperative on our part to make a decision to hold the reactor in a shutdown state while we resolved that situation.

In parallel with that, on the morning of November 30 we submitted a safety case to CNSC staff, which we considered to be an adequate safety case to demonstrate that the reactor could be operated safely with one pump upgraded. There were some deficiencies in the opinion of staff at that time that were identified and from our own notes we went away to work on those activities.

On the afternoon of November 30, we met with staff again in a different forum to discuss seeking a licence amendment on the basis that we were informed that we were, in their view, outside the licensing basis for the facility. At that time, as we understood the feedback from staff, they could not put forward our case to the commission seeking a commission hearing to discuss a licence amendment until the safety case issues had been adequately resolved within the CNSC staff.

The time line that was discussed on Friday and subsequently discussed between myself and Mr. Howden was that the expectation was something in the neighbourhood of seven days for us to resolve the safety case related items and put senior CNSC staff in a position where they could do what we understood to be a risk informed decision making process.

Depending on the outcome of that risk informed decision making process, we then understood that if it were successful, they would make a recommendation to put the case before the commission at a time line that was somewhat uncertain, but, as we understood it, probably would not happen in the month of December. That put me in a position where it was apparent that the most expedient way to return the reactor to service would be to do the upgrade on both pumps.

We still believe our safety case that we submitted on November 30 is adequate. It is important to know that these pumps, in their current configuration without being upgraded, have two power supplies, one of which is a class I power supply backed up by batteries and a diesel that we believe is adequate to ensure safe operation.

In the design basis event that we are talking about, if a severe earthquake, a once in 1,000 year event, were to occur and the power supplies were lost, we would not have, as Mr. Howden earlier described, forced flow to the reactor. We would have about half an hour for operator action to address that situation and, in the absence of any operator action in the time frame of about one hour, we would begin to experience dry out and the onset of fuel failures.

In that worst case scenario, and I am still talking about neither pump being upgraded, the dose to workers and the public would be within recognized guidelines for power reactors. At that point, while it is obviously not an event that is desirable in any form, even in the worst case we are dealing with doses to the workers and the public that are still within acceptable ranges.

The upgrade of one pump, which is essentially where we are and what our safety case supported, puts the situation in a 1 in 50,000 year range. With one pump upgraded, the probability analysis would say that we are in the 1 to 50,000 year range. With both pumps upgraded, we are in the 1 to 500,000 year range for this type of event.

One other thing is important. At the time of the November 30 meeting and the feedback that we received from staff, if I had done anything else other than keep the reactor in a shutdown state, I would have been knowingly and wilfully violating the licence at that point.

The commissioner has made several comments both at the CNSC hearings and here tonight that we violated the licence. We do not believe that is true and we do not believe that right now if we were to restart the reactor we would be in violation.

We can demonstrate through factual evidence that we can make available to everyone, both CNSC correspondence documentation and our own, that shows that CNSC staff knew at the time of licensing that these upgrades were not complete and we can make that information available to this House.

Our safety report that we submit at the end of every year, so most recently 2005 and 2006, both identify that these upgrades were not complete.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Chair, Atomic Energy of Canada nonetheless acted in full violation of the regulations and the legislation. Its permit required it to have two pumps. They went ahead with one pump and a modification is being requested. I think it was the commission that asked AECL to comply. However, even before that, this agency was in violation.

That is how I understand it. Atomic Energy of Canada's permit did not give it the authority to operate with just one pump. That is what I understood earlier from the president's comments. The permit is strict and AECL went beyond what the law and the regulations required in terms of operating procedures within the agency.

In any event, between Atomic Energy of Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, we do not know who regulates whom; we do not know who follows whom and who monitors whom. I get the feeling that there is confusion. As a result of its actions, Atomic Energy of Canada is putting itself above the law, if we consider its permit, the regulations and the legislation.

I know you will try to tell me this is done safely, but in the meantime, this goes well beyond the law and the regulations since this bill forces a humanitarian and social responsibility on us in matters of public health.

I have a second question that could be for the Minister of Health or one of the representatives of the Public Health Agency of Canada. What would be the medical consequences if the reactor is not restarted and is no longer used? I know this is heartrending right now. On one hand there is not the desirable level of safety because that is impossible with just one pump. On the other hand, there is another risk: people might die. As we know, Atomic Energy of Canada uses the reactor to produce Tc-99 and Cobalt-60 for cancer screening, radiation treatment and diagnostics.

I would like to hear a different perspective on the risk to public health. We are being presented a fait accompli today.

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, going back to AECL's involvement in this, I immensely dissatisfied with the performance of our organization. I have just spent time talking about the physical plant, the design basis and the licensing basis and, while now we are confident that we are within the licensing basis for the facility, I am immensely dissatisfied with our performance personally in terms of the time that it has taken for us to do the upgrades.

I believe that is the substance of our weakness in this case. We should have been moving these upgrades along more directly and we are doing a root cause investigation to more completely understand why we were not moving this forward more quickly.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Chair, I would like to answer the question about the impacts on health. The situation is very serious. There will be a shortage of resources for diagnostic procedures and treatments.

We are facing delays or cancellations in diagnosis and therapy. Right now there is a focus on emergency services and limited elective surgeries, but other diagnoses and treatments are not taking place.

There is starting to be increased wait times for diagnostic procedures. There are, as I mentioned in my remarks, hospital layoffs occurring because they cannot do the treatments in their own facilities because they do not have the supplies.

I would say to the hon. member, when we got the feedback from across the country over the last few days, it was clear that the situation is severe in certain provinces. It is less severe in others, but the situation is only going in one direction.

As supplies run out, even the provinces that were facing no shortage are starting to face shortages, and except for a couple of exceptions, like Alberta, that is true across the entire country.

We are in a state of triage right now in the system, but that state of triage cannot continue if there is no supply. That is the situation we felt we were facing.

I would also like to put on record, Mr. Chair, that every day counts in this situation. A loss of two or three days may not sound severe, but two or three days works out to something like 210,000 procedures worldwide.

The Canadian Medical Association indicated that there are 30,000 patients per week in Canada and 400,000 patients per week in the United States who require nuclear medical scans, so we get a sense of the severity of the problem. That is why we felt we had to act.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Chair, I rise on a point of order. Earlier during his answer to a question, Mr. McGee mentioned that he had documentation to support the statements that the CNSC was aware of the situation regarding the pump. I would ask that those documents be tabled at the earliest possible moment.

[The Assistant Deputy Chair, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is it agreed that Mr. McGee provide those documents to the committee at the earliest possible time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, first let me say that we certainly recognize the very serious nature of the issue we are dealing with, and in fact the historic situation we find ourselves in, given the Chair's indication that this procedure has not been used since World War II.

I think we all recognize that these very serious circumstances require our serious attention, and we are appreciative of the opportunity to have all these witnesses before us.

For all of those Canadians who are watching, there is a clear recognition that patient safety is being jeopardized by the loss of this reactor at Chalk River and the fact that Canada can no longer produce isotopes.

There is a recognition that Canadians are suffering because they do not have access to necessary treatment or the necessary diagnostic tools. However, there is clearly also an understanding that we are dealing with a very serious situation and the possibility of a nuclear accident.

My overall assessment of the situation is that it is a terrible shame that we have to come to a point where we have to choose between the health and safety of people and the possibility of putting at risk the workers working in a nuclear facility. That is what we have been listening to and that is why this debate is so serious. That is what we are here to ask questions about and that is what I intend to do.

This bill suggests that there is a need for a 120 day period of bypassing the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in order to ensure that the reactor that has been working at Chalk River for many years continues to work and produces the isotopes.

This bill suggests that this item, a pump, needs to be added to the mix. It also seems from all of the questioning today that there has not been that kind of pump at play for many years. My question is, what has changed? If we have been operating for many years without this extra requirement that the CNSC is suggesting is needed, why is it more dangerous now than it was for all of those years? That is a very fundamental question to this whole issue. I do not know who is best to answer. Perhaps Ms. Keen could start and then AECL should answer. Then I have a few questions for the government.

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, in looking at this reactor, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the CNSC was very concerned that it was a 50-year-old reactor. We asked for these safety upgrades to bring it up to a point where the commission could look at this. When we looked at this and licensed it in August 2006, it was under the express understanding that those upgrades were done to bring it up to those standards.

I would also like to say that we also have documents that we would like the permission of the House to table that say that the connections were part of those upgrades. We understood that those upgrades were going to be done on December 30, 2005. We also have the licence where they actually submitted that those upgrades were done. We think that those documents also are important.

It is not the staff of the CNSC that gives that licence. It is the commission. The commission understood this. Documents about what the staff might have had in other areas is really not of import. We are a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal. We have the law. We give the licences, not the staff.

We specifically thought that those upgrades were there because this is a 50-year-old reactor. We were willing to consider this to bring it up to modern aspect because we knew that those radioisotopes were necessary and so the commission worked very hard on this.

That is what is different. The six areas were required. We thought that they were in place and this was a safe reactor.

As Mr. McGee has said now and as Mr. McGee said at the meeting of the commission on December 6, he said that this was necessary for safety and that is in the transcripts available.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, it seems to me that if this problem has been going on for a while, Canadians and doctors, including the CMA, have questions about what happened to cause this decision to be made on November 18, the shutting down of the reactor, even though, as Ms. Keen has just mentioned, this problem has been identified for some time. Why was it done so quickly? Why was there no notice? Why are we left with letters like this from the CMA suggesting that this is jeopardizing some 30,000 patients per week in Canada?

That is a significant issue that we have to deal with. We are trying to balance in this committee the question of safety and risk to the workers at Chalk River versus the need for Canadians to have access to the treatments that isotopes provide.

[The Assistant Deputy Chair, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Was this directed at Ms. Keen?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

AECL first.

[David F. Torgerson]

Mr. Chair, I am not going to really comment on licensing, but I would comment on safety.

Our colleagues in the CNSC have stated that that reactor has been safe and it has operated safely up until the time that the reactor was shut down for its routine maintenance last month.

With the safety upgrades that we have made, in my opinion we have taken a safe reactor and we have made it even safer. The safety of producing medical isotopes in that reactor is, for me, without question, we are able to do it. We have made the case which we think is very strong in order to license the reactor and operate it safely and produce all the medical isotopes that this reactor is capable of.

This reactor, I have to say, produces almost 50% of the world's radioisotopes for medical use. When other reactors go down, it can produce 70% of the world's supply.

Mr. McGee has operated the reactor earlier this year to produce medical isotopes for the world at times when other supplies were not there.

We can produce the isotopes. We can produce them safely. To me that is the bottom line. We can do it safely and we can do it well.

[Barclay D. Howden]

Mr. Chair, I would just like to clarify our position.

As I said before, the reactor underwent seven upgrades to bring it up to modern standards. There is a difference between safe operation versus risk to safety. This reactor has operated with no significant accidents, although there have been events in the past, one called Line 1212 in the early 1990s, where there was a small loss of coolant. This was the reason why AECL recognized the importance of upgrading it to industry standards. That was a good thing to do. Completion of the upgrades and this final connection is essential.

The other issue is risk to safety. Because of no accidents, it has been operated safely. However, the issue at hand for us is if an accident occurs, is the reactor vulnerable. Our position is that it is vulnerable without the connections.

Another safety case is being put forward and the intention is to review that when everything comes in from AECL to assure ourselves that it is robust to be able to give the green light.