[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, October 3, 1996
.1116 
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): The topic before us today is a continuation of the study of Bill C-23.
With us today, from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, are Daniel Rozon, chairman of the research and development advisory panel; Jon Jennekens, a member of the research and development advisory panel; and Dr. Al Driedger, vice-president of the research and development advisory panel.
Go ahead, Mr. Rozon. Let's have your presentation, please.
Mr. Daniel Rozon (Chairman, Research and Development Advisory Panel, Board of Directors, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
On behalf of the research and development advisory panel to the board of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, I would like to thank you for accepting us on such short notice to appear before your committee during its consideration of Bill C-23, the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.
I'm accompanied this morning by two members of our panel: vice-chairman Dr. Al Driedger, and a recent member, Dr. Jon Jennekens, who is well known in the circles of the AECB.
If you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, I'll just read my brief, and then we can entertain questions that members of the committee might want to throw at us.
The research and development advisory panel to the board of directors of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was formed in the fall of 1991. The mandate of our panel is to advise the AECL board on the strategic needs and direction of the research and development programs of AECL, and to assure the board and other stakeholders that these programs have the appropriate scope and composition and the appropriate balance between short- and long-term activities to sustain Canada's nuclear program. Our panel is composed of independent experts in areas relevant to the nuclear program who have been recommended for appointment by the stakeholders in that program.
Important components of the R and D programs at AECL deal with reactor safety technology and with public and worker health issues. The provisions of the legislation currently in effect - the Atomic Energy Control Act of 1946 - and the regulations developed under it by the Atomic Energy Control Board impinge on these R and D areas to a significant extent, with the research in some cases being driven by the regulatory and licensing requirements of the AECB. Thus, our panel has become aware of the impacts of the current act and of AECB regulations on the R and D programs at AECL, and on the interests of AECL and other stakeholders. Over the years we have received presentations on safety and health issues from the former and current presidents of the AECB, and we have dealt with relationships between AECB and AECL in our annual reports to the AECL board of directors.
We have been very interested in the proposed new Nuclear Safety and Control Act, and have reviewed the act and other relevant material, including the 1994 report of the Auditor General of Canada, volume 10, chapter 15, dealing with the Atomic Energy Control Board. We concur with the finding of the Auditor General that the legislation respecting the AECB needs updating, and we welcome Bill C-23 as a very appropriate means of doing so.
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Our panel endorses the new act in general, since in our judgment the new act overcomes most of the deficiencies of the current Atomic Energy Control Act, which places a primary emphasis on national security rather than on the control of the health, safety, and environmental consequences of nuclear activities, which are found in Bill C-23. Nevertheless, our panel has certain concerns with Bill C-23 that we wish to bring to the attention of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
Subclause 12(1) of Bill C-23 states:
- The President is the chief executive officer of the Commission and has supervision over and
direction of the work of the members and officers and employees of the Commission
We propose that this potential conflict of interest could be removed to a great extent by appointing a member of the commission other than the president as chairman of the commission. The chairman would have supervision over and be responsible for the direction of the works of the commission, while the president would have supervision over and be responsible for the direction of the work of the officers and the employees. This arrangement would parallel the structure of the governance of most private companies, as well as most crown corporations.
Our second concern is the apparent lack of an effective appeals process for decisions made by the AECB. This has been a major concern of organizations dealing with the AECB over the years. We are pleased that Bill C-23 makes provisions for an appeal process in clause 43; however, since appeals will be heard by the commission, the appeals process does not seem to provide an independent avenue of appeal because the original decision would have been made by the commission itself in many cases. In addition to this, considering that the original decision will have been based largely upon the advice of the staff - which reports to the president - and that the president also acts as the chairman of the commission, it will be difficult for the chairman of the commission to consider the appeal in an unbiased manner.
While not providing a completely independent appeal process, our proposal above would at least provide a greater degree of independence than the arrangement proposed in Bill C-23. In fact, for cases in which the appeal is lodged against the decision of an officer of the commission - who reports to the president - rather than a ruling of the commission itself, the arrangement we propose does provide a significant degree of independence.
Our third concern is with the notion of unreasonable risk. Clauses 3 and 9 of Bill C-23 require that nuclear activities be conducted in a manner that prevents an unreasonable risk to the environment and to the health and safety of persons, among other requirements. We understand that this requirement can be met by ensuring that the environmental and the health and safety benefits of regulations issued under Bill C-23 by the CNSC must clearly exceed the social and economic costs of the regulations, consistent with the existing regulatory reform strategy of the federal government.
We believe this is a very important principle in ensuring that the many economic, technological, social and medical benefits of nuclear energy can be made available to Canadians while still protecting them from undue health, safety and environmental risks. Our panel suggests that a statement of this principle be included in clause 44 of Bill C-23, which deals with regulations.
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Our final concern is about the impact of Bill C-23 on the future availability of heavy water supply. From the definitions in clause 2 of Bill C-23 it is clear that heavy water, or deuterium oxide, is a nuclear substance, and that a facility for its production is a nuclear facility. Therefore possession and production of heavy water would come under the jurisdiction of Bill C-23, clause 3, and by paragraph 9.(a) would be regulated by the CNSC. This arrangement continues the situation that exists under the current act. Heavy water is an essential ingredient of the CANDU reactor.
From our work on the R and D programs at AECL, we are aware that future methods for the production of heavy water will be considerably different from the one used at present. Instead of the current production from a large stand-alone plant, using a highly toxic substance in the process, hydrogen sulphide, future production will most likely be from a number of small by-product facilities, using non-toxic substances in the process, attached to large plants producing hydrogen for other purposes.
We recognize the inclusion of heavy water under the jurisdiction of the current act was dictated by security concerns arising from the possible use of heavy water in a reactor designed for the production of materials for use in nuclear weapons, not because of the toxicity of the substance now used in its production process. In fact, hydrogen sulphide did not come into use until after the current act was passed in 1946. Nevertheless, the continuing inclusion of heavy water under the current act has often been justified by the need to protect public health and safety from the toxic hydrogen sulphide used in its production.
Application of the new heavy water production processes will be vital for the supply of the heavy water needed for CANDU sales in the long term. We are concerned that the introduction of the new production processes may be seriously hindered by the necessity for the operators of hydrogen production plants to obtain from the CNSC separate licences for small by-product streams of heavy water. Since any public health and safety considerations of these new by-product processes would be covered by the other regulatory bodies under which their plants are licensed, we urged the parliamentary standing committee to consider whether, in the light of current international non-proliferation developments, it is now necessary for heavy water possession and production to remain under the jurisdiction of the proposed new act and to be regulated by the CNSC.
In conclusion, our panel finds that Bill C-23 will provide a modern statute for the regulation of nuclear energy in Canada, and we believe our concerns can be addressed by relatively minor corrections to the bill, namely that the chairman of the commission should be appointed separately from the president and CEO; that a statement of principle about unreasonable risk should be included in clause 44, which deals with regulations; and that hydrogen production plants producing heavy water as a by-product should not be considered a nuclear facility under the provisions of Bill C-23.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Thank you.
Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies (Abitibi): It's difficult to ask questions of experts because they always raise very specialized issues. We might have thought that the witnesses would have spoken a little more about the objective of Bill C-23, which is to generally improve the safety of the nuclear process in Canada.
Canadians are still concerned. You are with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. People fear that you want to promote the development of atomic energy.
You talk about technical recommendations. You say it will be a good thing if the President and the Chairman of the Commission were two separate people. Can you explain to me in what way the President might find himself in a conflict of interest situation?
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You say that he's working with those people and you fear that the fact of working with those people... Could you give us an example of such a conflict of interest?
Mr. Rozon: Of course, our comments may seem a little specialized, but I still insist on the fact that our committee is very satisfied that the initiative was taken to table a new bill to replace a piece of legislation which goes back to the dawn of time, which was in fact adopted shortly after Wold War II. At that time, we were very worried about national security, while now health care and the environment are our priority considerations.
As regards apparent conflicts of interest, I would ask my colleague, who has very clear ideas on this point, to speak to the issue. It would be interesting to hear his views on the subject.
[English]
Mr. A. Driedger (Vice-President, Research and Development Advisory Panel, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I point out that my professional role is that of a physician. I appreciate that a million Canadians, more or less, every year undergo nuclear medicine tests and treatments that require the nuclear industry to be functional, efficient and safe. Public fear aside, the nuclear industry for the quality of health care that we receive is essential, and it must continue and be improved.
The issue of the conflict of interest, in my view, has to do with lines of accountability. The president and CEO of the board is responsible for the day-to-day operations, and as such, in the course of an appeal, is somewhat obligated to defend the work of his or her staff when it is brought before the commission.
If the president must also run around the table and be the chairman of the board, that's a very different function, because the chairman of the board is really a receptacle for the accountability of the staff as it pertains to the adherence to the policies of the board.
It is possible that to change the opinion of the commission at an appeal under the present and the proposed structure, the board must really, to some extent, vote no confidence in the president. That is how it is difficult to separate the issues.
Accountability is the key issue in this separation. There's clearly a line of accountability to the minister for the legal issues that are in the act and in related acts. I think there is a second issue of accountability that has come about as a result of the AECB, and its successor organization to be, in charging fees for the work that it does of its licensees.
There's a kind of natural justice that says that if you pay taxes you should be represented. The fees that are being paid now by licensees are quite large. I believe they have a right to ask what benefit we are getting for the work of the board. What is the value added to the increased cost of our productivity, be it health care, the production of energy or other products?
In order to close that loop and for the safety issues of the board to come fully into quality improvement and industrial re-engineering processes, there needs to be a separation of the loop. That can be better done through the kind of separation of offices that we are recommending.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: At another meeting, I asked whether it would be possible or even advisable to keep one seat on the board for Canadians interested in environmental issues and one seat also for industry. However, what you just said clearly reflects the idea of making the board more transparent. In your opinion, where should the Chairman of the board come from? From what field should he be selected? Do you think he should come from the scientific or the academic world?
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[English]
Mr. Driedger: I think we would see the chairman being a member of the board, one of the members selected by the process outlined, an informed member of the public whose responsibility, as in any corporate board, would be to exact accountably from the president.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: I think that would be important. It was stated at a meeting that the President and CEO had both to run a corporation responsible for ensuring the safety of the nuclear process in Canada and also to supervise the staff. So I believe there was a contradiction there. I think that is an important point.
As a newcomer in this area, I would like to ask a practical question. Is heavy water harmful or toxic before being used, or is it only the by-products which are toxic?
Mr. Rozon: Heavy water is essentially water with the hydrogen deuterium isotope rather than ordinary hydrogen. Therefore, from a chemical point of view, it has practically all the same characteristics as ordinary water.
Mr. Deshaies: So long as it is not used, there is no danger.
Mr. Rozon: No. It is the way its properties interact with neutrons which make it useful in the chain reaction. In the way CANDU reactors are designed, it is an essential material for maintaining the chain reaction. But as a substance itself...
Mr. Deshaies: Therefore, the fact that it is classified as a controlled substance may quite simply result from the fact that after World War II, the authorities wanted more effective control over energy. You now suggest removing the controls from that substance, because it is not dangerous, and choosing rather to control the other products. Is that your suggestion?
Mr. Rozon: It's not necessarily a question of removing all controls from that substance. It is rather a matter of not considering a hydrogen production plant turning out a few thousand tons of hydrogen and dozens of tons of heavy water to be a nuclear facility and therefore subject to the full weight of the Commission's regulations.
I think my colleague has some observations on the separation of powers within the Commission itself.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): You wanted to say something about this.
Mr. Jon Jennekens (Member, Research and Development Advisory Panel, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Perhaps I could mention that I was a member of the staff of the Atomic Energy Control Board for 17 years. I served as president of the board for eight and a half years.
The first president of the board was General McNaughton a soldier scientist. All the other presidents of the board have been drawn from the field of science. The current president, Dr. Agnes Bishop, is a physician. She happens to be a child oncologist. So on your question, sir, about where the chairman or the president would come from, if you look at where the president and the previous presidents came from then that would give you an idea.
Bill C-23 provides for a certain separation, really, of power. Normally the president of the new commission would not vote, except where there is a tie vote. In the particular situation our panel is concerned about, if it was an even split among the members of the commission and the president was then called upon to cast the deciding vote, obviously the president would have adopted a position on the subject. Normally an equal split would mean the subject was one of great importance, of great significance. It is this very type of subject, then, that should be handled by an appeal process in which there is not the conflict of interest that potentially exists.
Quite honestly, in the eight and a half years I was the president, I never felt that when a licensee wanted to come and talk to the board I was really in a position where I would be faced with a terrible conflict of interest. However, transparency is important and this is why our panel feels it would be preferable to separate the two.
As my colleague Dr. Rozon has said, when the act was first enacted by Parliament in 1946 there weren't thermonuclear weapons. There are today. In the intervening years deuterium oxide and tritium oxide have been used as components of thermonuclear weapons. In terms of national security, the physical security considerations of heavy water are still as applicable today as they were then, 50 years ago. It is in the production of heavy water that the question has arisen, and arose right from the very beginning when the first production plant went into operation using hydrogen sulphide.
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The health and safety and environmental protection requirements of the board were imposed. At that time, the board felt this was the proper course of action to take, simply because there did not seem to be a sufficiently comprehensive non-nuclear licensing process for that production.
Production plants that can and will produce heavy water as a by-product are of an entirely different character. The physical security provision should still apply, but whether or not this plant should be licensed is the question we have cast our opinion on. We think the answer is no, it shouldn't be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Mr. Ringma.
Mr. Ringma (Nanaimo - Cowichan): I think it is very interesting. I was going to zero in on this, I guess because I'm ignorant about the whole subject of heavy water. I'm like a typical civilian who says heavy water must be contaminated - if you were to open the taps on a reactor and let it drain out, it would contaminate the whole of the Ottawa River. This is not so.
I understand your point, Dr. Rozon, about saying for the future let's differentiate here.
But in your presentation, Mr. Jennekens, I still perceive some concern about what use might be made of heavy water. Is there a security implication with other nations, for example? Is it more a question of security of this sort rather than of the physical security of the commodity itself?
Mr. Jennekens: Mr. Chairman, heavy water is included in the export control list. Any person wishing to export a significant quantity of heavy water would have to get an export licence issued by the Atomic Energy Control Board and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
It is in this connection that Canada is a member and has been active in several multinational groups whose primary interest is in nuclear non-proliferation. It is in this area, as Mr. Ringma has mentioned, that there is a continuing concern. Therefore certain physical security arrangements and requirements should still be applied, should be enforced and should be verified. This is quite apart from licensing the operation of a hydrogen plant which has as a by-product a small quantity of deuterium oxide coming out.
Mr. Ringma: The other thing this brings up, and you touched on it, is the public perception of what is happening. As I say, being a typical member of the public and not knowing the ins and outs of the business, I'm concerned, perhaps unduly concerned. Therefore, as we go into a new era here, what further measures should we collectively be taking to let the public have more consultation with the new commission or to give the commission a greater role in educating the public? Public ignorance of the whole nuclear process has always been and will continue to be an obstacle. So it is incumbent upon us to do whatever we can to diminish that obstacle if we can, especially if there is something specific in the new regulations.
Mr. Rozon: In fact I think the new regulation does provide for this mandate, if you want to call it this, of the new commission to inform.
Mr. Ringma: You have read it through those eyes.
Mr. Rozon: I'm appreciative of this.
But, if I may, I would like to come back to the notion of a separate chairman from a president. I think the chairman would, again, be responsible for accountability, for making sure this information process is adequately followed.
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Mr. Driedger: I have a point to add to that. I think one way to deal with public fear is to avoid regulation where there is not a danger. One molecule in 7,000 in your body and in the Ottawa River and everywhere else is heavy water. The process of producing heavy water is simply to extract and concentrate it. There is no radioactivity involved in the process of producing heavy water.
As a matter of fact, Canada is no longer the only nation that produces heavy water. And it is altogether possible that in the future, AECL, the international reactor vendor, might be driven to look for the best price anywhere, so the regulation of heavy water under the act in Canada might become quite effete. And it serves no purpose to support safety.
Mr. Ringma: I think I understand it. Would you agree with me, though, that if we collectively were to deregulate heavy water, in many ways we'd need some sort of a public information campaign to counteract the scaremongers?
Mr. Driedger: Possibly, but the facts are on your side.
Mr. Jennekens: Mr. Chairman, could I respond somewhat to Mr. Ringma's point?
Before the Canadian government wisely enacted the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act, there was a prevailing view in the nuclear field that information should not be actively disseminated. Prior to the enactment of those two pieces of legislation, the Atomic Energy Control Board did establish an office of public information, which is currently a very active office. It's serving a very useful function in providing the kind of information your colleague referred to. However, as I travel about the country I still find many people who fall exactly into the category your colleague described.
One point I would like to mention is that when heavy water is used in a nuclear facility, such as a research reactor or a power reactor, some of the deuterium in the heavy water does absorb a neutron and becomes tritium, and tritium is radioactive. It decays with a half-life of a little over twelve years by a beta emission. So that heavy water in a moderator or primary coolant system of a research reactor or a power reactor is in fact radioactive and must be carefully monitored, and any leakage or any release from the facility must be carefully controlled.
There is provision in the regulations similar to what currently applies in the regulations, but I think it's a little more explicit. It's in paragraph 21(1)(e), and is with respect to the dissemination of ``scientific, technical and regulatory information to the public''. This, I hope, will continue to be a high priority of the Canadian government, of the board, and of the new commission when it is established, but it's exactly the point Mr. Ringma has expressed his concern about, and it is a very important subject.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Mr. Bélair.
Mr. Bélair (Cochrane - Superior): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to pursue the line of questioning both my colleagues have indulged in. When you speak about a conflict of interest, I suspect somehow that there's some kind of a power struggle here in your role as an advisory committee. And given that you are all doctors of science, chemistry or physics, isn't your word heavy enough to influence all of those decisions?
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, it's not a matter of being sufficiently authoritative. There is a difference in function. Having worked somewhat in a corporate setting, I can say that the role of a president and CEO is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the organization. The role of the chairman is to exact the accountability of the president on behalf of the shareholders.
Those are quite different roles. It isn't that we're concerned about a power struggle. It's a case of defining the roles so that each individual can operate within the integrity of the role and not be torn by conflicting duties as between, in an appeal, for instance, the duty of the president to support the work of the staff if it's been well done and the duty of the chairman to conduct a fair appeal process, to allow for openness and transparency in the process and to give due process to the appellant.
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Mr. Bélair: I'm not so comfortable with the answers you've given to date. As my colleague said a while ago, I don't think anyone sitting on this committee has enough knowledge to be able to assess what you people are saying. From Dr. Bishop, who was here as a second witness, to you people, it's somewhat difficult.
This reinforces the point that there is a very large need to educate the public. Is that one your roles also?
Mr. Driedger: Yes. There's an issue of accountability. We're very comfortable with the -
Mr. Bélair: That's within your department and with the Government of Canada. I'm talking about the public in general.
Mr. Driedger: The public is also involved in accountability. In a sense, under the old and current act, because of the way it is structured, public accountability is dealt with in the way the minister oversees the process on behalf of the people.
Mr. Bélair: Yes.
Mr. Driedger: That needs to continue as it pertains to the board, or its successor, functioning within the law.
As I said earlier, there is a second limb of accountability that today's democracy requires, and that is, having introduced the issue of charging fees, there is an accountability for ``What am I getting for my money?''
Mr. Bélair: That was one of my next questions, by the way.
Mr. Driedger: That needs to be a very open process as well, to ensure that there is no collusion and that there is even-handedness. The separation of roles will reinforce and support the openness and transparency we seek. We're not looking for protection of science or technology in this as such; we're looking for the benefit of science and technology for Canada. We believe nuclear technology has a great deal to offer our country.
Mr. Bélair: That's true.
On another line of questioning, I noticed in your presentation - and you are involved in research and development - that you have not alluded at all to the fact that the whole world, Canada included, does not have a specific program or mechanism to deal with high-level radioactive waste. You somehow must have been involved in this process, because right now there is research done in the Winnipeg area, so how does your advisory panel come into this picture?
Mr. Rozon: Well, I don't think the question and the answer we will be giving you relate in any way with Bill C-23, but that aside -
Mr. Bélair: Well, there's a clause in there, I think it's clause 44, that deals with waste. You are an advisory panel; you are researchers; you are doctors in physics and chemistry. You certainly have a role to play here, to advise either the commission or the minister.
Mr. Rozon: We're to advise the members of the board of directors of Atomic Energy of Canada on their research programs. Atomic Energy of Canada was mandated to develop the concept for disposal. They've done so, they've presented it, it's been under scrutiny and right now it's pretty well in the hands of Ontario Hydro.
But we have followed it very closely, and we do have an opinion -
Mr. Bélair: You're part of a national panel, and Ontario is in there, obviously. What is your role? You have not answered my question. Do you have a role or do you not have a role? And if not, who does?
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Mr. Driedger: As a panel we have advised AECL, in the overview we've taken, of the R and D work that has been done on deep waste disposal. Some of us, including myself, on our own initiative have also made presentations to the environmental hearings that are going on now on the environmental impact of the proposed implementation.
I'll give you my view. The solution is not a difficult one. Geological deep disposal is being looked at as a way of managing waste for the long term, and the issues are not scientific and technical; they have to do with a good understanding on the part of the public of what is involved and a willingness on the part of Canadian communities to participate in this and to see it as an opportunity and not as an excessively risky venture.
We can give you more detail off-line, if you like.
Mr. Bélair: No, I just wanted to establish your role and whether you were involved in this, and you have just said you have made a presentation. So you have recommended that they be buried deep in the Canadian Shield.
Mr. Driedger: Yes.
Mr. Bélair: You are an advisory panel. Does it occur in your line of work from time to time that you are consulted by someone in the private sector to help them apply for a licence?
Mr. Driedger: It has not happened.
Mr. Bélair: Could you inform the committee if you know if there are any consulting firms in the country that would fill such a role?
Mr. Driedger: I don't know of any.
Mr. Bélair: If you do apply for a licence, you have to know what you're talking about. I could not. So where do I go to apply for a licence?
Mr. Jennekens: One of the major assignments of the staff of the Atomic Energy Control Board is to assist prospective licensees, to explain to licensees what is required, what competence they must have, what institutional arrangements they must have, what training their people must have, what physical protection arrangements must apply, what radiological protection provisions must apply. The staff of the AECB provides this service to anyone who inquires. The office of public information, to which I referred, provides very general but also some quite detailed information. Over the last twenty years the AECB has put out great volumes of documentation. Most of it is easily understandable to a member of the public, particularly someone who wishes to make an application for a licence.
On your question, Mr. Bélair - I'm retired, by the way - I have five little activities. I'm chairman of Ontario Hydro's advisory panel on nuclear safety. I found that was a potential conflict of interest until the then chairman, Dr. Kenneth Hare, whom many of you may know, convinced me that when there are people such as Dr. James Ham, the retired president of the University of Toronto, on this panel, I couldn't get into too much difficulty about conflict of interest.
I've been the chairman of the panel for the last two years. One of our rules is to advise Ontario Hydro, a major licensee of the AECB, how it should be improving its capabilities. Undoubtedly, as you have read in the media, we've had our hands full in the last little while.
I also serve, on a gratis basis, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the area of nuclear safety.
I'm a member of a voluntary organization concerned with the verification provisions of arms reduction and control treaties.
So if you like, I'm a consultant, but an unpaid consultant; and I'm very happy to do so, to be quite honest. To my knowledge, in this country there isn't a specific company or consulting organization involved whose sole or primary focus is providing advice to a licensee about how to make an application to get a licence from the AECB. They get that information and advice and assistance by going directly to the AECB.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Mr. Reed.
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Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to apologize to the witnesses for being late in coming here. I had a personal phone call I had to make. I didn't get to hear the whole presentation, but I was here when you talked about the heavy water component.
I think it's time to explode the myth about heavy water and put it on the record that you can make the darn stuff at home. If you have a little simple apparatus, a bit of electricity and some water, it's no big deal.
So I would support this quest of the witnesses to take it out of the thing once and for all. If there's some problem with the process that's going on right now, it's not a nuclear problem; it's a chemical problem. You worry about hydrogen sulphide, but, good heavens, one wonders if heavy water should ever have been put into this category. And if we do take it out, it seems to me that we can save the country a little bit of money in the process, because people are not going to have to go through the licensing process to produce heavy water as a nuclear issue.
I don't feel qualified to comment on the other two, but I certainly do support your point of view wholeheartedly. If some of my words get to the press and they want to learn how to make heavy water, I'll tell them. Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: I have two short questions. The first concerns a letter from Mr. Baird, who worked for a number of years at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. He pointed out that after 50 years a new piece of legislation is being adopted, but at the same time one point is perhaps being repeated and a distinction should be made between safety and the development of atomic energy.
In one of the first clauses, the Minister of Natural Resources is given responsibility for both supervising the implementation of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and also responsibility for the Commission. Do you not think that he would be preferable if responsibility for enforcement of the act were entrusted rather to the Minister of the Environment, since the issues involved are a little more concerned with the environment than with natural resources?
Mr. Rozon: That is certainly a possibility, but whether by completely separating the two mandates or two roles, we would not be creating a conflict instead of an unreasonable situation...
I referred in my brief to the notion of unreasonable risk. It is essential that this principle be highlighted and serve as a yardstick for the activities of the Commission. We have to avoid moving towards a prescriptive situation. To date, we have operated in accordance with the ALARA principle, that is as low as reasonably achievable. In my view, this principle should be retained if we want to achieve a balance between risk and benefit, because there are very significant benefits.
Of course, the reason why we invest in development is that we consider that there is a benefit for society in so doing. Moreover, care must be taken to ensure that the risk is not too high. Are we doing that when we separate ultimate responsibilities between two departments or are we not in fact creating a situation of competition between two entities, competition which would not necessarily lead to greater safety or better development of technology?
Perhaps, Jon,
[English]
you might have a few words on this?
Mr. Jennekens: Mr. Chairman, I have perhaps a couple of points.
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When the Atomic Energy Control Act was enacted by Parliament, the understanding at that time was that the chairman of the Privy Council committee on industrial and scientific research would in fact be the designated minister. At that time it was the honourable minister of everything, of course, Mr. Howe. It continued for several years that it was that particular chairman, the chairman of the Privy Council committee, who was the designated minister.
In later years, the designated minister for the AECB also became the designated minister for AECL, Eldorado Nuclear Limited, and for the National Energy Board. Quite clearly, those of us who served in one or more of those agencies felt that there was a clear conflict between the two.
When the precursor to Bill C-23, Bill C-14, was laid before the House - it unfortunately died on the Order Paper - one of the major underlying considerations at that time was a separation between ministers into a minister designated for the purposes of the Atomic Energy Control Board and a minister designated for AECL and other organizations. I believe that this concern remains today on the part of many of us who have been in this field.
Here's one of the things, which our chairman has just reminded me of. When the panel met a few weeks ago, one of the areas the panel addressed was the increasing tendency by the board, including in the years I was with the board, to become much more prescriptive in its regulation-making activities. By this, I mean that instead of establishing performance objectives, basic criteria and principles that should govern the activities of a licensee, the board gradually found that it needed to be more and more explicit about what these health, safety and radiation protection requirements were, as well as physical security requirements. That continued a little too far, and there is a concern currently on the part of the industry.
Dr. Driedger is a medical doctor. He has been active in the field of nuclear medicine. This is an area, for example, where it's really important for the Parliament of Canada to understand that AECB licensees aren't only utilities. AECB has thousands of licensees. It's their interest and well-being that needs to be addressed. One way of doing this is by separating the powers.
To get back to the prescription, on March 20, 1979, there was a serious failure at a reactor known as Three Mile Island in unit number two. Some people call that an accident. That's a euphemism. It wasn't an accident; it was a series of failures.
Seven years later, on April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred. Both the Soviet approach and the American approach up to Three Mile Island was to become very prescriptive. Consider the old U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's division of licensing and its successor under the Energy Reorganization Act of December 1974, which created the Energy, Research and Development Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That regulatory commission, in the three years it was in power, issued so many very prescriptive regulations that the utilities and the nuclear consultants in the United States were having great difficulty in understanding that the first thing, of course, that you have to do is establish an institutional understanding of safety. Simply the mere observance of rules and regulations issued by a regulatory agency isn't sufficient.
After the Three Mile Island failures occurred, the U.S. utilities finally realized that's what they had to do. They established an organization called the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which is a totally industry organization, but it established its own performance objectives, criteria and principles. It established a set of what it calls good practices. None of these are procedures; they're all a concept of public and occupational safety.
Our panel is a little concerned as a result of what happened in the area Mr. Bélair referred to earlier, actually, in waste disposal, which is that the AECB is continuing in this progression of becoming more and more prescriptive. We think it's very important for this to not be allowed to continue unchecked, and that it needs to be examined.
Mr. Reed will remember very well when he was a member of the MacDonald committee, which was looking at the safety of nuclear reactors in this province after the Three Mile Island failure. At that time, we who were on the regulatory side made the same point: it's important to be very explicit about what your requirements are, but it's not up to the regulator to assume the primary responsibility for safety. That can't be.
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The driving examiner who issues us our drivers' licences isn't responsible for our safe driving; we are. It's the people who are operating the automobiles who are responsible, and it's exactly the same in a nuclear facility. You must make sure the operator realizes that the corporation, the institution, has the ultimate responsibility for safety.
So we do believe that in its wisdom this committee should address the question of to what extent this tendency to become more and more prescriptive should continue, and return to the point you mentioned, sir, about a separation of ministerial responsibilities for regulation and development. Thank you.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: You talked about an acceptable level of safety. Would the acceptable level vary over time? You said it would be important to have a declaration of principle on that subject, so as to focus on the economic development of the country, which could change as was seen in the case of countries in Eastern Europe. How would you interpret such a declaration of principle?
[English]
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, there is an international standard or principle known as the ALARA principle. Radiation levels should be ``as low as reasonably achievable'', with social and economic considerations having been taken into consideration. That principle was evolved by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, which continues to oversee and comment on trends in the industry and write reports that are implemented by our national safety bodies.
I think it's very important to note that no one is implying there would ever be a lack of safety. That's not implicit in what I'm saying. But there are benefits that fall out from the technology that we should not be denied, in our country, based on some excessive level of protection that is over and above the requirements of people.
If we applied the same level of safety to the highway code as we are sometimes urged to do in the nuclear industry, the traffic speed limit on the 401 would be five kilometres an hour because a head-on collision at a higher speed might bruise the front of your brain, our economy would grind to a halt, and we would all starve to death.
The same sorts of considerations apply in the nuclear industry. We wish to avoid harm to people and will go to great extents to so do. We applaud the intent of the act because it continues a tradition of safety in the nuclear industry in Canada. But we must not be driven to such an extreme that we can no longer afford the health measures or the benefits to the economy of affordable electricity and all that implies for the quality of our lives and our health as a nation.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: I know that you practice nuclear medicine. Would you agree to certain equipment, even if beneficial for health, being potentially more dangerous?
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[English]
Mr. Driedger: The risks and benefits are no different from those in other walks of life. One undergoes the risks of surgery in anticipation of improved health. One undergoes the risks of crossing the street because of the destination you wish to arrive at. The same sort of thinking applies to nuclear safety at all levels.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: You want that latitude?
[English]
Mr. Driedger: It should continue to.
Mr. Ringma: I hope you don't have a copyright on the analogy to Highway 401. I'd like to use it, because it's pretty clever.
I'd like to finish with a question that I hope is not too much of a digression. I'm really searching for information. A constituent wrote to me some time ago talking about his proposal for a subductive method of disposal of high-level waste. As much as I can ascertain, there perhaps hasn't been sufficient consideration given to it. That's just my perception of it.
I questioned the minister, Anne McLellan, about this a week or so ago and she was aware of it as a method. She said it was being considered by a panel. I haven't been able to pin down that panel, so I wonder if you could tell me about it and give me a contact point so I can ask further questions, and maybe give a brief analysis of your own of the subductive method, its possibilities and potential or its drawbacks.
Mr. Jennekens: That panel was established by the Canadian Environment Review and Assessment Agency. It's chaired by Mr. J.B. Seaborn, a retired former deputy minister of environment. The agency's offices are in Hull. I can certainly provide the names of contact persons in the agency, from which information could be made available to the committee. Perhaps I can do that with the clerk after this meeting, sir.
Mr. Ringma: Could you give a very brief summation or analysis of that method of waste disposal?
Mr. Jennekens: I'm a new member of the panel and my colleagues are longer-serving members of the panel in other capacities. Dr. Driedger is in the area of nuclear medicine and oncology and I am a member because of some of my other activities. A brief has been submitted to Mr. Seaborn's panel by Dr. Kenneth Hare, Companion of the Order of Canada, who is an incredible individual; Dr. Driedger; Dr. L.W. Shemilt and Dr. J.T. Rogers, who are both emeritus professors, with Dr. Shemilt from McMaster and Dr. Rogers from Carleton; and me.
The thrust of our brief is that the Canadian taxpayer, via the Government of Canada, using AECL as an instrument and doing a lot of its work at the underground research laboratory you referred to, Mr. Bélair, in Manitoba, but also through Canadian consultants, and geologists in particular, has spent approximately $500 million doing very preliminary and continuing research and development into the concept of geologic disposal.
My four colleagues and I who submitted this brief feel that sufficient money has been expended on preliminary and ongoing research and now it's time for Mr. Seaborn's panel to recommend to government that the whole matter be taken to what is called a site selection stage. In fact the Atomic Energy Control Board staff, although it submitted quite a critical staff report on the work that was done by AECL, recommended that the site selection stage be proceeded with. We are convinced that is the best way in the public interest.
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Actual geologic disposal of waste fuel - it's now called nuclear fuel waste, which is the correct term - is currently safely stored underwater and in concrete canisters in dry storage. It's certainly safe in those two forms of storage. But ultimately that material should be put into a geologic repository, so forever and a day future generations will never have to be concerned about it.
We are quite convinced that adequate research and development have gone on to this point. Now it's time to stop spending a lot of money on research and development and to get on with the practicalities of site selection. The scientific review group established by the agency, the Environmental Assessment and Review Agency, has made the same recommendation. A number of the professional societies, including the Canadian Geologic Society, have recommended the same.
Mr. Rozon: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, I can't let go of the opportunity to comment, because I believe you asked what we personally felt about this.
I'm not a geologist. I'm just a professor of nuclear engineering. I've always been interested in and fascinated by the civil or peaceful uses of nuclear energy. I am convinced we are following the right road in pursuing deep geological disposal, because in essence what we're doing is just returning to nature what we took away from her. We are isolating from the biosphere those elements which we feel might present a danger for future generations and it's essential that we do it within our own generation, the one that benefits from the use of those products.
So I fully concur, of course, with my colleagues' analysis and recommendations that we proceed. We've spent enough time looking at how to make a hole in the ground. It's high time we proceeded and found one place.
[Translation]
We are totally vulnerable. We are open to criticism. By the simple fact that we do not dispose of waste, we give the impression that we cannot do so.
We are spoiled in Canada for two reasons. We are the major of uranium in the world and we also have a certain responsibility, but the Canadian Shield offers millions of cubic kilometres where we can store dangerous materials. I think it is high time to begin looking for a site. That shouldn't be too complicated. It seems to me that the problem is the opposite of the one you encounter when finding a mine deposit. In this case, we have to find a location where there is nothing.
[English]
It's much easier to find a spot in the Canadian Shield where there's nothing than to find a spot where there's an actual.... I'm sure we could proceed and do it in very short order. But of course there is a due process. We have to inform people. I'm quite satisfied with the way things are going right now, but I would hope they would move on a bit.
That was just a personal comment.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed: I was just going to say, Dr. Jennekens, that among all your many august qualifications memory was not mentioned. I'm a bit bowled over, inasmuch as at that time I hadn't grown up as much as I had grown out.
I'm interested in the comment about now is time for site selection. I remember being whisked out to Whiteshell in 1978, I think it was, and then it was said ``now is the time for site selection'', that the technology had been established, etc. You and I will remember Ontario Hydro and I think it was ACEL running around looking for plutons in northern Ontario and finding one in Mount Moriah, near Madoc, and then experiencing the political upheaval that took place as a result of that, then going out and searching again, only in unmarked trucks, to find something somewhere else. So I'm a little curious about this idea that now is the time for site selection. Wasn't the time for site selection nearly twenty years ago, and then every year since then?
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Mr. Jennekens: It certainly was, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Reed is absolutely correct.
What we collectively botched was what your colleague referred to earlier, and that's the matter of public information, of explaining the reality to people. One of the realities that a young lady on the train coming home from Toronto yesterday was surprised to learn was that two-thirds of the electricity generated in this province comes from nuclear plants. She was just flabbergasted. She thought it was about 10% or 15%. So what we have not properly done is fulfil the public information responsibility Mr. Ringma referred to. We botched it terribly. We collectively elected or appointed officials, technicians. We simply didn't do it properly, and we've lost a lot of time and we've spent a lot of taxpayers' money.
Mr. Rozon: If I may address that question of how now is the time, why is now the time when it was more relative then? We're talking about sustainable development, le développement durable. If I understand this concept, it relates to the fact that if we reap some benefits from some enterprise or technology, then we must take care of the ways in which we.... It's a question of responsibility. It's a moral question. Morally, I think now is the time, because in this province 65% of the electricity is currently being generated through nuclear power. It's our responsibility to take care of this problem before we all die and leave it to our children. We have to do it now. We have the means to do it, so why not do it?
An hon. member: I couldn't agree more.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): I have just one question: What are other countries doing in connection with disposing of their nuclear waste? Are you in collaboration with them, or what?
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, there's a wide-ranging international effort. There are many projects going on. In the U.S. there's the Yucca Mountain project, which is looking at the disposal of nuclear field waste at that site. The Swedes have a project that is well advanced, and I believe they may be putting fuel in the ground now, subject to.... Does anyone else know? There are also quite a number of additional projects in Europe that are looking at different geological locations. And I think Canada is acknowledged as being a leader in the evaluation of the particular geology that we have.
Mr. Jennekens: Mr. Chairman, Canada has been very active in the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and equally very active in the work of the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That latter agency, the NEA, has a long-established expert working group that has examined the Swedish program, the Finnish program, the French program, the Canadian program, and it has given the Canadian program high marks. The only area in which we seem to have been incompetent is this area Mr. Ringma referred to earlier, and that's explaining things to people and explaining them properly so that people really understand what's involved: What is the radiotoxicity of nuclear fuel waste? How many engineered barriers and how many natural barriers will apply in this underground repository?
I think all the scientific work that has been done has been judged to be first-class by the NEA and by the IAEA, and there has been a tremendous interchange over the years. In fact, through AECL, Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Québec, and also through the institute of which Dr. Rozon is the director, we have provided people with the kind of technical confidence that is necessary to do the job right. We seem to have failed in this one very important area, and that's the area that needs to be addressed now.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Thalheimer): Thank you. That will bring the morning session to a conclusion.
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I want to thank you, gentlemen, for coming here and enlightening us. As I'm sure you are aware from the questions the members asked of you, our panel has quite an interest in this subject. Thanks again for coming and sharing those thoughts with us.
We will adjourn.