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

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, I would like to reinforce that because the industry has the ultimate responsibility to put together a safety organization and in fact ensure that there is good communication. The commission often asks when licences come before us what is the communication situation on any particular area?

Clearly, AECL is going to be doing a root cause on this matter as to how it got a point of not having this safety area addressed. The CNSC staff have agreed that they are going to be doing a lessons learned to look at this. There was, obviously, and Mr. McGee said this in front of the commission at the commission meeting and there are transcripts to this, this understanding that was different than what happened with the CNSC.

I think that communication is important. We do have site staff now. Before we did not have this. We have put a group of people on site to make sure this happens. I think that Canadians need to see that it is important to the regulator and it is important for all of our 2,500 licensees.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a quick question for the Minister of Natural Resources.

Just for the record, the act that is in front of us says that we will deregulate the Nation Research Universal Reactor. AECL, as a whole, will still be regulated but that reactor will no longer be regulated by the commission. Is that accurate or not?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, I will read subclause (1), which states:

Atomic Energy Canada Limited may resume and continue the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River in Ontario for a period of 120 days after the coming into force of this Act despite any conditions of its licence under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act relating to the installation of the seismically qualified motor starters on the heavy water pumps and the connection to the emergency power supply.

It is very specific that this exemption applies is to only these pumps and we have legal opinions to support that.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, that was a straightforward question, because subclause (2) states:

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited may resume and continue the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River only if it is satisfied that it is safe to do so.

It does not talk about the pump. In my opinion, and I want the minister to confirm this, the regulator is not regulating this reactor according to the act. If this act receives royal recommendation, the regulator will not have regulation over that nuclear reactor?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, we disagree with that interpretation. Our interpretation is very clear from all of the advice that we have received. It is specific only to these two pumps and that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would have complete jurisdiction over all other aspects with respect to regulating the reactor at Chalk River.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I hope the minister can table for us the legal opinion that he is using as guidance.

My next question is for Mr. McGee. Mr. McGee, do you accept and recognize that there is, and I know it was said earlier, the need for a regulator, the authority and responsibility of a regulator, over all nuclear reactors?

[Brian McGee]

Yes, I absolutely do.

I would also like to say, though, and I believe it is something that has been said earlier this evening, the operator, me, my staff and my team are ultimately responsible for the safe operation. Our goal is not compliance. Our goal is safety well beyond compliance.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. McGee, do you accept the fact that AECL had accepted the recommendations of the commission 16 months ago during the licence and that it needed six or seven recommendations in order for them to be in compliance with the licence? Is that accurate? Did AECL accept those recommendations to be in compliance?

[Brian McGee]

I want to be more specific than that. The seven upgrades, the situation we are in now goes right back to 1993, so that is the reason the commissioner mentioned that there would be root cause investigation, and that is part of what we need to understand. It is part of that root cause investigation. It would be premature for me at this point to try to predict its outcome. However, clearly something occurred between 1993 and 2005 within the organization's understanding of what the scope of those upgrades were.

In 2005, we signed off saying that those upgrades were complete, and we did that, to the best of our knowledge, in the belief that they were.

At that time there were also communications back and forth that indicated this particular work, which was seen by the organization to be not part of the scope of the upgrades but enhancements, was also recognized and openly identified as not being done. That is the documentation I referred to earlier.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, my purpose here is not to assess blame at all. My purpose here is to show that the regulator has a role to play and that in fact occasional mistakes t happen, which is why this is very important. History will tell us a lot about what needs to be done and the importance of the regulator.

I want to be very specific because all of us here want the nuclear reactor to be up as quickly as possible. In my opinion, this legislation will set an unusual precedent and in fact a dangerous precedent. We need to find a way to get it working as quickly as possible without this act and see what the difference is, and see if it is worth taking this unusual precedent.

I know you talked about the safety case, but how quickly can you get the safety case application up to standard to what the commission is expecting you to give them?

[Brian McGee]

One of the things about safety analysis is, and I do not want to get into a lot of technical detail about it either, but safety analysis is built around calculations, assumptions, uncertainty allowances and a number of different things.

We believe that to respond to the concerns that CNSC staff have about the safety case that we presented, our best case scenario would be at the end of the day Thursday, but we would expect out of that, based on experience, there would be discussions and further discussions about what that analysis meant. My best timeline for you is that we can probably, best case, complete our work at the end of the day Thursday but without certainty that it will satisfy the needs.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. Keen, if you receive the safety case by Thursday, how quickly will the commission be able to adjudicate that case and make a judgment?

[Barclay D. Howden]

Mr. Chair, what we focus on is the due diligence that has to be executed to ensure the safety case is up to nuclear standards and that all the professional expectations are put in place and we have a process in place to meet that.

Our focus is to ensure that the detailed safety assessments provided by AECL demonstrate that the risk posed meets regulatory requirements. If the case comes in robust, we would expect it would take a couple of days, two or three days, to review that.

As Mr. McGee has stated, we have been in constant contact at our level and at the staff level to try to ensure that everyone understands each other's position.

[Linda J. Keen]

It is because this is outside its licence that it applied for and received in August 2006, that the tribunal would be required, under the law, the law that the tribunal would have to meet, but we have talked to our members and they would be prepared to meet in 24 hours to get this done, assuming that it is a good safety case and that the staff recommends it, and we would move this forward.

It really depends on AECL to supply the safety case. We do not have a formal application for a licence amendment but it should not be a big problem to get that done.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

We are getting somewhere, Mr. Chair. By Thursday you can have the safety case completed and we are hearing from the commission that it will take a day or so to assess it and then another day to get the tribunal set up.

Is it safe to assume that the commission has an idea? Apparently, AECL had submitted something that was incomplete so I am assuming that it should not take as long for the safety case to be examined since you have some of the information already available and all you need is some of the information that is missing.

Could this be expedited? What we need to understand today is whether we can get this done as quickly as possible without, in my opinion, the necessity for this unusual precedent.

[Barclay D. Howden]

At the moment, the process we are following is expedited. We are going as fast as we can.

Safety cases are not simple things. There is a lot of complexity. There are things like thermal hydraulics and reliability, reactor physics and looking at very important things. Our expectation is that AECL will produce the information to support its rationales, and we have communicated on what those are and have shared them back and forth. The expectation, if that comes in as robust, the two to three days that I stated is expedited because we must ensure that nuclear standards are met and that professional judgment can be exercised, and people need time to be able to do that.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have another question for the commission.

Before I follow up on what I was asking, what kind of affect would this act have on our international obligations? The nuclear safety act says that one of the reasons the commission was established was for us to comply with a lot of international obligations and treaties. What kind of impact will this act have on international treaties?

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, the requirement under international standards are for a convention on nuclear safety, which is a peer review group on various areas.

A month ago, I chaired the first meeting ever on the code of conduct for research reactors in Australia. What we have found up to now is that these are voluntary standards for research reactors. I think licensees and regulators themselves are very interested in benchmarking themselves, so there would not be a direct impact on international standards in that we would be violating a treaty or things like that.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, my question is for the AECL.

If this act passes and this reactor is no longer under the regulation of the commission, will this have any impact on your insurance?

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, our opinion is that we will not be operating outside the regulatory framework. I do not want to put words in the minister's mouth, but our understanding is that it only applies to the situation and there will be no impact on any insurance. We would still be accountable to the regulator, we believe.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I am not sure why we need this act then. Does AECL need this act for the reactor to start up as quickly as possible?

[Brian McGee]

Yes.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. McGee, you said that you could have the safety case by Thursday. Is that correct?

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, what I said is that the best case scenario, based on what we understand of staff concerns to this point, is that we would have the case by end of day Thursday.

I think it is important to go back though. We believe we have submitted an adequate safety case. We believe that we have the right to go before the commission at that time. Our understanding is that it was not staff's decision whether or not we went before the commission. We submitted a case that we felt was adequate for commission decision making.

I guess I also need to emphasize what I said earlier because it has been mentioned a couple of times that we are in violation of the licence. Based on the factual documentation that we have, both ours and CNSC staff, we do not believe that we are in violation of the licence.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. McGee, I think we could spend a lifetime arguing this point with you but I do not want to do that. I want to move forward.

This is a very serious scenario and you are aware of the health consequences to Canadians. We need this safety case to be put together as quickly as possible. You are telling me that you can get it done by Thursday. Is that correct, given the circumstances that we are facing?