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

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Chair, so if people were notified and ministers were obviously made aware, I am just curious: was anyone was made aware that if there was a prolonged shutdown there would be an impending crisis with respect to the radioisotopes? If they were, then why was something not done to mitigate that knowing it would go into a prolonged shutdown?

I just want to know if it would be the minister or AECL. AECL agreed to continue the shutdown. Did you inform any of the ministers that we were going to have a shortage?

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, let me start by saying that the decision to keep the reactor in a shutdown state was the only safe and prudent decision available to me at the time based on the opinion of the CNSC staff that I was outside the licensing basis with the facility.

If I had chosen at that point to restart the reactor, I would have been charged with a licence violation. I should not presuppose what the enforcement activity would have been, but I would have been exposed to enforcement activity.

From a safety perspective, I have to respect the staff's opinion and understand more clearly what the status is. I think everyone heard me say earlier in testimony that we now believe that we were not and are not outside the licensing basis. However, at that point in time I made the only safe and prudent decision, out of respect for the opinion of professionals in the CNSC staff. Until I could adequately disposition that opinion I had to take action to remain shut down both from a prudent perspective as well as a legal perspective.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, but I would like you to answer my question, which was: Did you inform the health minister or the natural resources minister that there was going to be a shortage?

You would know that you are shutting down and you do not know when you are going to start up again. At some point you are going to incur a shortage of radioisotopes because these things do not get made by themselves.

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, I did not personally notify any ministries. We have a corporate government affairs group and I cannot comment on what they may or may not have informed anybody of.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would then ask either of the ministers if they were informed.

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

Mr. Chair, on Friday, November 30, there was an email sent by the government relations person at AECL that in fact there was a shutdown, that it expected to resume operations soon.

I do not have the specifics of that, but it was not sent at a senior level. It was not sent to me personally. I became aware of it some time on December 3 and then there were discussions on December 4 about an action plan, but it was not communicated before that.

I was first made aware I believe late in the day on December 3 and started working on it on December 4.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Chair, just for the record, I and my department were informed on Wednesday, December 5.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Chair, I find it disturbing that it took so long to inform the ministers of this impending crisis, and that it would take international pressures and a shortage of this magnitude to bring us to this point.

I am going to pass it over to my colleague.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, following up what was said by the member for Vancouver Island North I think we need to have this matter, whatever happens tonight, referred to a committee for adequate follow-up because there are obviously many questions about whether or not the ministers were notified in time and what action they then did or did not take.

Here we are at the eleventh hour with a crisis and there are a whole bunch of questions that we do not really have the answers to. I think it just reiterates our request that this must go to a committee for a full follow-up and review about exactly what took place here.

I want to come back to the central question. I have been listening to the discussion all night and there have been some very good questions and some very good observations. All members of the House, no matter what party they are from, have two overriding concerns. One is the safety of the operation of the nuclear reactor and the other is the safety and the health of Canadians who desperately need these isotopes.

I think it is fair to say that we have it clear on the record tonight that the role of the commission is intact. I think there was some questioning here that suggested that somehow everything would be thrown out the window and we would have no regulatory oversight.

We have established that this legislation before us tonight exempts AECL only for up to 120 days, so it is a maximum of 120 days. It could be less than that depending on how long it takes to get up and running. It is only an exemption for the motor starters and the connections to the emergency power supply. It has nothing to do with the rest of the operation. It is that limited basis that we are talking about tonight, and that has been put on the record.

We have also had an agreement from the government that it will agree that there should be regular reports from AECL every 30 days, hopefully it could be more frequent than that, to the House so that there can be a regular updating of what goes on.

The issue comes down to this. How quickly is this operation going to get up and running, and whether or not this legislation is required? We have heard the questioning from the Liberals sort of trying to explore whether or not in and of themselves they can get this going. I do not think that has been fully answered.

We have heard that as of Thursday evening there could be a safety plan put forward, but we have not yet had a clear answer from the commission as to how long it would take it to deal with that safety plan and then how long would it take after that to actually get that plan operational, and get this reactor up and running so that these isotopes can be in full use for Canadians. That is the question we have to get at.

If we are told it is a week, or maybe it will be nine days or maybe 12 days, I do not know, but if that does not happen, what will happen next? This House will have to be reconvened. At that point we will have an operator that is not within the licence requirement and there will be nothing to allow it to get up and running.

I feel that is the question we have to get at here. We have to find out precisely what the shortest time and the longest time frame is that without this legislation this operation can get up and running. More exactly, with this legislation we at least have a precaution and an allowance in place that if it does not happen, this legislation would at least allow up to 120 days, including the regular oversight that the commission has.

I would like the commission to be much more forthright and clear in its answer as to what the timelines are that we are talking about in terms of what can be done if this legislation is not approved tonight.

[Linda J. Keen]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Howden did give an estimate, assuming the safety case is well done. We have not received the safety case, but assuming the safety case is complete we are looking at a matter of three days as Mr. Howden said. The commission would take a day, so that is four days.

How long it would take after the decision is rendered to get the reactor back up is the role of AECL. That is not the role of the commission. I will turn that over to AECL.

[Brian McGee]

Mr. Chair, from the point in time that start-up is authorized, whatever triggers that, it typically takes about three days of start-up activities. That is important to ensure that the reactor is safe to operate. We cannot rush into it at this point in any case.

We are coming out of an outage where significant maintenance was done, so we would need to go through several assurance checks to satisfy ourselves it was ready to go. That would take about three days. About four days after that we would start to pull low yield radioisotopes. Four days after returning to full power, low yield isotopes, and about three days after that we would be back into normal production with high yield radioisotopes for the moly-99. Some of the other isotope streams would take a little bit longer to reach equilibrium distribution.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, it really comes down to some sort of risk and gamble as to whether or not we believe that AECL will be up and running without this legislation or whether or not there will be some other requirement or some requirement that it does meet and Parliament will have recessed. There will be nothing then that allows AECL to get up and running with this particular set of conditions that is contained in the legislation that is before us tonight.

I really feel that is what the bottom line is here, to get an assurance that this facility will be up and running and that this legislation will ensure that it happens because Parliament will not be sitting.

We have still not been given tonight an assurance that without the legislation that it will be up and running. If we total up the days we are talking about two days for a safety case, three days approval by the commission, three days possibly for start up, four days for low yield, and three days normal period of some products. We are looking at maybe another two weeks plus minimum when we may or may not see this reactor up and running.

I think from that point of view we have to really look at the risk here and ensure that if this legislation is required that there is a provision where AECL can get up and running even if Parliament is not here, a provision for regular reporting back to the House, and the provision that the commission still has all of the regular oversight that it has always had and that it will continue to have.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Does anyone from the government care to comment? The hon. Minister of Natural Resources.

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

Mr. Chair, I can only advise the member to pass this bill. AECL has advised us that it is ready to resume operations forthwith. It believes it can operate it safely, if not even safer than it has been operating in the past.

I think it was outlined that it will take three days to get it to the point where it can start pulling some charged targets, but not fully charged.

The advice I have been given is that if AECL started the reactor tomorrow, if we pass this legislation tonight and got it through both Houses, once AECL starts the reactor it is approximately eight days before it would have a usable radioisotope. It is eight days from the time it starts until it actually has a usable radioisotope. That is the information that we have been provided.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is there any comment from any of the witnesses on that? No.

There are two minutes remaining for the NDP if there is anyone who wants to use it.

Suspension of Sitting

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

If not, there are two other witnesses who have now arrived. What the Chair has in mind, and I have had some discussions, is that the witnesses have been very patient and everything has gone well.

I am suggesting that the committee of the whole suspend for 10 minutes and resume with the witnesses that we have, plus the two who have arrived.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 10:26 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 10:43 p.m.)

Sitting Resumed

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. Committee of the whole is now back in session.

Before we proceed to the next round, we have two new witnesses with us: Mr. Daniel Meneley, former chief engineer of AECL and Mr. Robert Strickert, former manager of Pickering and Site VP of Darlington.

I believe Mr. Meneley has a statement that he would like to make to us. Mr. Meneley will have five minutes and we look forward to hearing his testimony.

[Daniel Meneley, Former Chief Engineer of AECL]

Mr. Chair, Bob Strickert and I were asked a very simple question concerning the safety of NRU if and when it restarts and operates.

We both have a technical background. We do not speak to nor do we know the situation with regard to licensing, specifically. We are talking about safety.

Is NRU likely to be safer or less safe after it restarts than it was before? Clearly, with the addition, as I understand it, of the single seismically qualified power supply to one of the pumps, the safety of the plant should be improved relative to what it was at the time of shutdown.

Therefore, the question is this. How does the risk of that potential operation compare with the standard? It appears, according to the literature we have read, that the plant satisfies the prior licence conditions, but let us leave that one there.

Therefore, the new requirement that is placed on the plant to improve the reliability of the power supply to these pumps is an improvement, we feel, and in the long term should be an enhancement of the safety of the plant.

We come to then a comparison between the risk of continued plant operation versus the risk of the lack of medical isotopes to a large number of people. In our judgment and in our opinion, our judgment says that the risk of operation of NRU is very much less than the risk of not operating NRU.

That completes my statement.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Thank you, Mr. Meneley.

We will now proceed to a Conservative round. We will hear from the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, the hon. member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, I rise on a point of order. We were planning on splitting our time, so perhaps I could go first for the first 10 minutes, which will allow the parliamentary secretary some time to sort his issues.

[The Chair, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and for the Canadian Wheat Board has the floor.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Howden, I wanted to ask you a question tonight and I will hold you to a yes or no answer here.

Would you agree if we resumed operation tomorrow of the NRU, that it would be as safe as it was prior to November 18?

[Barclay D. Howden]

Mr. Chair, our view on the operation is that prior to November 18, when neither pump was connected to the emergency power system, it was not an acceptable situation. However, the proposal put forward by AECL is to have one of the pumps connected to the emergency power system, with the other pump operating normally. We agree the safety of that will be greater than it was before. However, again, that is the reason why we want to look at the safety case to determine whether the risk to safety is acceptable to go forward.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, I think we have agreement from all three parties at the table tonight that the situation with the NRU is it would in fact be as safe as or safer than it was prior to November 18 if it were allowed to resume production immediately.

I want to go back to the issue of how long it will take the NRU to get up and running. We seem to have some clear indication that if the bill is passed tonight, there is the opportunity to have the production of isotopes resumed within about a week. Seven or eight days I think is what we were talking about.

Could AECL tell us how long it thinks it would take to get the reactor running without the act? Then I will have a further question on that, as well. Is it approximately two weeks?