Natural Resources committee  Yes. Thanks very much. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It's an honour to appear before you today as one of my first official acts as the new president and CEO of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or NWMO. My colleagues Derek Wilson and Elena Man

Natural Resources committee  With regard to other opportunities for used nuclear fuel, in 2007, as I mentioned, the government decided that the APM program was the correct way forward for Canada in terms of how to deal with used nuclear fuel. That includes an end point of a deep geological repository. As p

Natural Resources committee  I'm looking at my colleagues, because I'm relatively new. I don't have the total amount we've spent since 2002, but I would be happy to provide that after this session.

Natural Resources committee  In siting a waste repository of this nature, a deep geologic depository, it's an important principle that we have a willing host and that we can demonstrate safety of the repository. Those are two fundamental elements of the work. In our work going forward in selecting a partic

Natural Resources committee  AECL has a number of waste liabilities. They have low- and intermediate-level waste and some small amount of used fuel. My organization is responsible for the management of long-term solutions for used nuclear fuel, so a small portion of the material from AECL will be managed thr

Natural Resources committee  Generally speaking, there are major players in the waste business. Ontario Power Generation—and I don't want to speak for Glenn—has a large portion of the low- and intermediate-level waste, as well as the used fuel. They are also, like AECL, a large component of the discussion. H

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. It's an honour to appear before you today to discuss our work at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. I am joined here today by Bob Watts, our vice-president of indigenous relations at the NWMO.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is currently policy direction from the government with respect to management of nuclear waste. There is policy that requires the owners of the waste to put in place steps to manage all of the waste they're responsible for, whether it's used fuel or low and intermediate or l

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The policy is that the owner of the waste material must put aside a program to address that, which could include funding at this point in time. Some of the industry has progressed further along that path to develop projects. I think the observation from the industry is that there

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I believe the policy direction is sufficient for the owners of the waste today to deal with the situation. In our case, we have a federal act that is very clear on what responsibilities are assigned to the various players. The policy itself provides that owners of nuclear waste a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Maybe Bob and I will both answer that. I'll answer it from the business perspective, if you will. I think the hardest lesson to learn is that first nation and Métis communities are involved in many, many things just as any community is. They have a lot of their own business to t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll step back a bit. To select a community, we have three criteria that we focus on. One is safety. I think this is where your question is coming to. We need to understand if the rock in the area, if you will, is suitable for siting a deep geologic repository. Part of the work w

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Seven per cent sounds like a low percentage—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —but when you look across the population of indigenous people who are available, it is generally representative of that. Further than that, what we are looking for is to bring indigenous people into our line of work, which requires that there is a certain amount of investment in

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think this is a really important aspect, and it's something that I focus a lot of my effort on, both for indigenous people as well as for gender balance. I think it's about attracting people into the science, technology, engineering and math programs at a university level, but