EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 8, 1996

.1113

[English]

The Chairman: Order, please. Today the committee will again be considering Bill C-23, an act to establish the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

We have four witnesses scheduled for today, three of whom are here, so we're going to begin. I'll just go through the process a little bit. We are going to ask the witnesses to provide an opening statement for a maximum of ten minutes each, and we'll do so in the order that appears in the schedule.

I will ask the witnesses to keep relevancy in mind, as I've reminded my committee members over the last couple of weeks. This is a discussion of Bill C-23 and I ask that the comments be directed thereto. After the opening statements we will have a discussion with the committee members, beginning with the opposition and then going around to the government side. Hopefully we'll be able to cover a fair amount. I ask everybody to be as concise as possible in their question, answers and comments.

Mr. Gordon Edwards is here from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Kristen Ostling is here from the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout. We are still waiting for a couple of witnesses from the Nuclear Awareness Project, but we'll proceed. Mr. Boyd is here from the Canadian Nuclear Society.

And you have a couple of individuals with you, Mr. Boyd.

.1115

Mr. Fred Boyd (Member, Canadian Nuclear Society Council): Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I will introduce Mr. Hong Huynh, who is the current president of the Canadian Nuclear Society, and Mr. Ken Smith, who is the current treasurer of the society.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. I call upon Mr. Edwards to provide his opening statement.

Mr. Gordon Edwards (President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you about Bill C-23. By way of introduction, I've given you a very short two-page presentation, accompanied by an article that was written in the 1980s at the request of the editor of the Canadian Business Review.

As for who I am and my involvement in these issues for many years, I am a gold medallist in mathematics and physics from the University of Toronto. At the present time I am a professor of mathematics at Vanier College in Montreal. I have worked as a consultant on nuclear issues for many years to such bodies as the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning. The Auditor General of Canada retained me as one of two outside consultants when he was doing a comprehensive audit of the Atomic Energy Control Board. I have consulted with numerous governmental and non-governmental agencies throughout Canada on nuclear issues.

With regard to this particular bill, I'm very happy to see that the Atomic Energy Control Act, which after all was enacted in 1946 under a shroud of secrecy.... At that time there was virtually no parliamentary debate about the bill and there was very little knowledge about nuclear power. A lot of it was secret because of its connection to the World War II atomic bomb project, and it came as a great surprise to Canadian parliamentarians and Canadian citizens that Canada had any involvement at all in that project.

So here we are revisiting the legislation 50 years later, and I wonder if it's going to be another 50 years before we revisit this. I do believe it is incumbent upon us to make sure that legislation is adequate to guide us through the next half decade, if necessary.

One of the things we have to consider is that 50 years is a long time. We have to be prepared for all eventualities. I do believe that one of the most important things in this act, which is not there, is a separation of responsibility between the regulatory agency, whatever it may be called, and any promotional agency for nuclear power.

This means that the new regulatory agency that is being proposed should really not report to the same minister as Atomic Energy of Canada Limited does. There are many practical reasons for this. I've indicated some of them in my written text.

First and foremost is the question of conflict of interest. In the bill itself there is provision to prevent or avoid conflict of interest among individual members of the Nuclear Safety Commission.

A minister is in the same position. How can a minister, with his cabinet colleagues, be both a defender and promoter of nuclear power and at the same time an unflinching critic, when necessary, of safety and environmental issues? Can the same minister play both roles?

This question becomes particularly acute if the industry does not fare well, which is a distinct possibility.

It's quite possible that over the course of the next 50 years the industry may not do well. Right now it's not expanding in Canada. Ontario Hydro is in great financial difficulties. There's no indication that the other provinces that have nuclear reactors are going to be expanding nuclear power, and when you get those kinds of difficulties emerging, the tensions grow between the regulatory role and the promotional role. I don't think it's wise to have the same minister in charge of both.

Another consideration is that there's a whole new dimension of responsibility, which has hitherto not been explicitly present. And that is the environmental responsibility. It comes as a bit of a shock, perhaps, to realize that this far down the nuclear road there are no effective federal environmental regulations regarding, for example, radioactive emissions. There are none. In fact, I asked this question of a representative of Environment Canada during the hearings into high-level nuclear waste disposal in Toronto and that was his answer. He said that there were none that he knew of.

We're talking about a brand-new mandate for this agency. We're talking about setting environmental standards. It seems to me that the expertise for that kind of development is located elsewhere than in the Department of Natural Resources. I think it would be very beneficial to the development of standards that are harmonious with other standards for other industries and governing other pollutants to have the nuclear safety agency report to the same minister who deals with those problems, namely the minister of the environment.

.1120

There is a third point, however, I'd like to emphasize. As a scientifically trained individual myself, I believe Canada owes it to itself, and that we owe it to the Canadian people, to create a greater diversification of expertise on nuclear issues. This has been the case, for example, south of the border, in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Here in Canada I think the nuclear industry has been pretty much a closed shop. There are unfortunate consequences of that. One of the unfortunate consequences is a kind of a similarity or sameness of viewpoint that prevails, so we don't really get a genuine debate on nuclear issues. We get more or less the industry point of view. Of course, we get the regulator's point of view, but the regulator is, in this situation, reporting to the same minister.

I believe we should deliberately cultivate a diversification of expertise. I'll give you some examples of where this has helped in the United States. In the United States, they now have pockets of nuclear expertise in such bodies as the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Geological Survey and the General Accounting Office. They have a special section of the General Accounting Office that deals specifically with nuclear materials. They also have a number of state agencies that are particularly well-equipped to deal with nuclear issues, such as the California Energy Resources and Conservation Commission.

The result of this diversification of expertise has meant a number of things. For one thing, it's meant that people with nuclear expertise who don't necessarily want to work for the nuclear industry have alternative employment. This means, for example, that people leaving the nuclear industry have somewhere to go. It also means that when an issue comes up, you get different agencies commenting with different points of view on what the options might be for dealing with this particular issue.

Here's one example of that. This is a black and white photograph taken of a colleague of mine of the radioactive tailings left over at Elliot Lake. This is about 70 million tonnes of radioactive sand left over from uranium mining at Elliot Lake.

In the United States, partly because of the diversification of expertise, they have dealt with this problem by special legislation. They have 220 million tonnes of this in the United States. We have a comparable amount here in Canada. In the States, they have special legislation called the Uranium Mine Tailings Reclamation Legislation. They have funding to deal with stabilizing these tailings to deal with the environmental problems of these tailings, which, by the way, will remain dangerously radioactive for literally hundreds of thousands of years.

This is only one example. There are other examples.

Consider the decommissioning of nuclear reactors, for example. Here in Canada we have couple of reactors that are already defunct and could be decommissioned, but until we do it, we're not going to know what's involved.

There is also the question of a radioactive inventory. Canada has no official radioactive inventory; that is, we don't have an official inventory of radioactive sites across Canada with estimates of how much it might cost to clean them up. In fact, we don't even have, from our own crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, according to the Auditor General of Canada, a proper accounting of their liabilities in the context of radioactive contamination.

Why do I mention that in connection with Bill C-23? It's because, gentlemen and ladies, I believe that if this agency begins to report to a different minister, such as the Minister of the Environment, you will begin to see a pocket of expertise growing up in the Department of the Environment that has to do with nuclear matters. I believe you will see more initiatives coming forward to deal with these problems on a case-by-case basis that are presently being ignored.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's through any fault of the Atomic Energy Control Board itself, but the history of the Atomic Energy Control Board has shown time and time again that events reach a crisis proportion before the Atomic Energy Control Board is given the authority to step in and act. I'm talking about Port Hope, Scarborough, and other situations in which things get out of hand. Then the Atomic Energy Control Board is given the authority to step in and act.

.1125

I think we have to have a piece of legislation that has the nuclear safety commission reporting to a minister who can take initiatives without any conflict of interest on dealing with some of these problems.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. I call on Ms Ostling.

Ms Kristen Ostling (Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout): First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity to make this presentation to you today on this very important piece of legislation.

I'd like to give you some background on the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, also known as CNP. CNP is a non-profit alliance of safe energy and environmental groups from across the country. We were founded in 1989. Since its inception, more than 300 organizations representing a wide cross-section of Canadians have endorsed the campaign.

There are some important new features of this bill that I'd like to address. First, this proposed legislation signals a new era in Canadian nuclear legislation. For the first time, the protection of the environment will be explicit. The new nuclear safety and control commission, which will replace the AECB, will have the authority to require financial guarantees, order remedial action and to require responsible parties to pay for clean-up costs. This is an important feature of the act.

The Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout's analysis of the nuclear industry indicates that the phase-out of nuclear power is not only possible, it's already under way. This new legislation should be structured in such a way as to anticipate a phase-out. The legislation should focus on safety and be divorced from assumptions that perpetuate the nuclear industry.

The historical record clearly demonstrates that nuclear power is an unsafe technology. Accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 help to encourage an international trend away from nuclear power. Recurring safety problems in Canada have caused the AECB to suggest, for example, that the Pickering nuclear power plant's licence should be renewed only for a period of six months.

In the 1995 calendar year, there were 786 unusual events recorded at operating reactors. These events ranged from minor spills of radioactive heavy water to a significant impairment of one of the two shutdown systems at one plant.

There are a number of ways in which this act could be strengthened. For example, the act designates the Minister of Natural Resources as the responsible minister under clause 2. It is a clear conflict of interest to have the minister in charge of promoting the nuclear industry to also be in charge of the regulatory body governing the nuclear industry. Therefore, we recommend that in order to separate the regulatory and promotion functions, the Minister of the Environment be designated as the responsible minister.

Under the purpose of the bill, which is in clause 3, the development and production of nuclear energy is seen as the very purpose of this bill; however, if the purpose of the legislation is to ensure nuclear safety and control, as the title of the bill suggests, then safety and control should take precedence over the development and production of nuclear energy.

Rather than emphasizing the development and production of nuclear energy, the purpose of the bill should be to ensure nuclear safety and control, primarily as the industry winds down. International studies have shown that nuclear power around the world is in decline. Even in Canada, which is currently attempting to sell CANDU technology to countries like China, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey, there are no nuclear power plants being planned. Internationally, concerns about safety, environmental impact and economics have made nuclear a less attractive energy option.

Clause 3 also acknowledges risks on many levels that are inherent in nuclear technology. This section should be strengthened to address what constitutes reasonable and unreasonable risk in these areas.

Clause 6 of the bill deals with nuclear-capable and nuclear-powered vessels by exempting them from the bill. A professor at the University of California's nuclear policy program studied the potential effects of a nuclear accident on a military vessel in British Columbia. He analysed two scenarios. One would be the incineration of a nuclear weapon, and the other was a nuclear reactor accident. In both cases these events would lead to fatalities in the short and long term plus latent cancers and genetic defects.

.1130

Given the potential disastrous impacts of an accident involving nuclear-capable or nuclear-powered vessels, there must be legislation pertaining to this issue. If it is not the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, then what legislation does pertain in this case?

Clause 7 of the bill exempts any activity, person or quantity of a nuclear substance from the bill. It is not clear for what reason these exclusions would be granted. Therefore these circumstances should be clearly laid out or the clause should simply be deleted.

Clause 9 of this new bill presents the objectives of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The new commission has a double mandate, as we've already seen, which combines both regulation and a promotion of nuclear energy. The safety and control elements of the commission's mandate are only secondary and are framed in terms of preventing unreasonable risks. However, the bill fails to define what would constitute an unreasonable risk. Therefore, clause 7 of the bill should be rewritten to give the new Nuclear Safety Commission a clearer mandate to ensure nuclear safety.

There are a number of clauses in the bill that refer to the Nuclear Liability Act. The Nuclear Liability Act limits the financial responsibility of the nuclear industry to $75 million in the event of a nuclear accident. This limit is clearly out of sync with the real cost of a nuclear accident. For example, some estimates have shown that an severe accident at Darlington could exceed $1 trillion. We know already that the accident at Chernobyl has cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

This low level of liability of the nuclear industry amounts to a massive subsidy to the industry and there is obvious concern within Parliament on this issue. For example, there are two private member's bills seeking to increase the amount from $75 million. In one case, MP Chuck Strahl's Bill C-289, suggested the level should be increased to $350 million and Warren Allmand's Bill C-249 recommends the amount be increased to $500 million. Moreover, Charles Caccia, in his remarks in the House, stated that the Nuclear Liability Act should be brought into the House to modify, increase and modernize the approach to the legislation.

Clauses 87 to 89 of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act amend the Atomic Energy Control Act and create this new Nuclear Energy Act. The proposed new wording for clause 87 states it is an act relating to the development and utilization of nuclear energy. This clause should be changed to reflect the need to ensure control, safety and the phase-out of nuclear power. The new Nuclear Energy Act should be viewed as legislation to ensure the safe sunset of the nuclear industry in Canada.

A recent report from a Washington-based NGO has stated that increasing costs and tractable waste disposal issues and safer, more economical energy alternatives have resulted in a stagnation of new plant orders internationally and a gradual, global marketplace rejection of the technology.

So we can already see, globally and in Canada, that nuclear is being phased out. As Charles Caccia pointed out in his intervention in the House on Bill C-23, Canada's dependence on oil and nuclear sources has to be examined and gradually changed.

We recommend the new Nuclear Energy Act be accompanied by legislation ensuring that clean and safe energy sources replace nuclear energy in Canada.

Another important feature of the bill is in clause 94. It stipulates proposed section 15 of the Nuclear Energy Act should allow for continued government subsidization of the nuclear industry. Instead, we recommend the new Nuclear Energy Act provide for the phase-out of subsidies to the nuclear industry. This phase-out of nuclear subsidies should be done in a manner that ensures the environment and the health and safety of persons is in no way compromised during the decommissioning and clean-up period.

.1135

The nuclear industry is one of the most subsidized industries in Canada. In 1995, total funding to Atomic Energy Canada Limited amounted to $13 billion. Ottawa's decision to subsidize AECL for the past 42 years has added significantly to our national debt to an extent not previously appreciated by policy makers.

Recent research conducted by economist David Argue establishes that if AECL subsidies had gone to pay off the national debt, Canada's debt would be $33 billion lower than it is today. It is very important for this new legislation to deal with the question of subsidies.

In fact, the government is dealing with subsidies. In the February 1996 budget, cuts were announced to the AECL subsidy. The cuts were almost half of its current subsidy. By 1998-99 the subsidy would be down to $100 million.

The new legislation we recommend must address the government's commitment to decrease subsidies. It must ensure there are sufficient real funds provided by the nuclear industry to deal with clean-up, decommissioning, nuclear waste and other costs associated with nuclear power in Canada.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has already recommended the government terminate its involvement in the CANDU owner's group. The memorandum of understanding will be expiring in March 1997. We believe the federal government should head the advice of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and ensure the COG agreement is not renewed.

Under clause 21, the bill devolves power to the provinces in the case of regulatory issues. We believe this approach is unwise. The dangers associated with nuclear power require federal regulatory approaches.

The new bill does not deal with nuclear exports and imports. This is one thing we believe should be addressed in the bill. The new bill should amend the export and imports permit to ensure Canada gets out of the nuclear export business and does not help to usher in a plutonium economy through the import of MOX plutonium derived from nuclear weapons.

The bill should ensure that Canada does not take on the burden of nuclear waste produced in other countries, from either civilian or military sectors.

In conclusion, I would like to recommend that there be a full parliamentary and public debate on nuclear issues to ensure these issues are adequately addressed. Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you.

We're now joined by Irene Kock and Douglas Chapman from the Nuclear Awareness Project.

Welcome. If you weren't here at the beginning, we're asking you to make a 10-minute opening statement. This will be followed up, after all the witnesses have provided their opening statements, with questions from the committee members. Please proceed.

Ms Irene Kock (Nuclear Awareness Project): Thank you very much. Our apologies for arriving late.

My name is Irene Kock and I'm speaking on behalf of Nuclear Awareness Project, a citizens' environment group based in Durham region, where the Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations and the Port Granby radioactive waste dump are located.

Nuclear Awareness Project and our affiliate Durham Nuclear Awareness are dedicated to raising public awareness about nuclear issues and energy alternatives. I'm joined by Doug Chapman, a staff lawyer with Sierra Legal Defence Fund, which specializes in environmental litigation and provides free legal advice and representation to environment groups and concerned citizens on a variety of environmental issues. Mr. Chapman prepared our written submission.

Nuclear Awareness Project has been tracking Atomic Energy Control Board proceedings and activities for several years. We have intervened at AECB meetings on the relicensing of the Pickering and Bruce nuclear stations, on the Chalk River nuclear labs, the Cameco uranium refinery in Port Hope and the Port Granby dump. We are currently preparing for interventions on the relicensing of Pickering station again, and the Chalk River nuclear labs for the second time. Our experience in all of these areas has led us to the conclusion that the AECB is certainly in need of an overhaul.

.1140

We were also consulted by the Auditor General's office during its detailed review of the AECB published in 1994. It is our hope that this new legislation will significantly improve regulation of the nuclear industry in Canada.

Now we will each take some time to address specific comments on Bill C-23 to highlight the key points in our brief. I'll turn it over to Mr. Chapman.

Mr. Douglas Chapman (Legal Lawyer, Sierra Legal Defence Fund): I note that in the spring 1996 edition of the Reporter, which is a publication of the Atomic Energy Control Board, it was said that Bill C-23 would make legal provisions for public hearings, reviews and appeals. Of course, there is nothing in the bill that provides for any mandatory public input into any of the processes of the commission.

We also know that the bill contains a clause, namely clause 66, which mandates that every member of the commission and those people working for the commission must swear an oath of secrecy. My question is, why is this oath of secrecy necessary? We're not in wartime. There is no Cold War now. This government has forbidden anything to do with nuclear weapons.

We're being asked now to accept weapons-grade plutonium from the United States and to do tests on it to see what we can do with it here in Canada. In other words, we are looking after the U.S.'s nuclear waste, even when we set on a course that forbade the Government of Canada to have anything to do with nuclear weapons.

We have a situation where the nuclear tailings in the Elliot Lake region that were mentioned by Mr. Edwards have been labelled by a panel under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in this way: ``The tailings of the Elliot Lake uranium mines present a perpetual environmental hazard.'' That means forever.

The first thing we should think about is how it came to pass that we have in an area of Ontario a perpetual environmental hazard. What are we going to do about that? Well, I can tell you what we're going to do about it. The Government of Canada has entered into an agreement with the Province of Ontario that they will be responsible, and that agreement can also be found in a report of the environmental assessment panel of June 1996: The Decommissioning of Uranium Mine Tailings in the Management Areas in the Elliot Lake Region. That is marked as appendix D to this report. The Government of Canada and Ontario agree that they will be responsible for the perpetual care of these mine tailings.

We know that Rio Algom and Denison Mines made a lot of money over the years mining uranium. Why should the taxpayers of Canada be responsible for the perpetual care?

Insofar as secrecy is concerned, there's an application under freedom of information legislation in Ontario with respect to the Chalk River nuclear dump and facility. The application was for all of the information with respect to what was in that dump and what was being emitted into the natural environment. We know it's leaking into the Ottawa River. The reply came back that because of national security, many of these documents were not available to us.

We're talking about national security and we're talking about the withholding of information. I suggest that the only security that comes into play here is the security of the nuclear establishment. It's dangerous for them to have the public get hold of all the information with respect to the nuclear waste at the Chalk River site, just as it is dangerous for the nuclear establishment when environmental groups have all the information about the dangers of the Pickering nuclear plant. There have been refusals with respect to that also.

.1145

My question is this: why are all these pieces of information matters of national security and secrecy? I can tell you the answer. It's because it's a danger to the nuclear establishment to release it. There's no other possible reason.

On the bill itself, I want to make some brief comments on the offences and penalties sections. First of all, I want to deal with the whistle-blower section. Paragraph 48(g) makes it an offence for an employer to take disciplinary action against an employee who gives information to the authorities. That's known as whistle-blower legislation. Although it's an offence, there is nothing in the bill that provides for looking after the employee after he goes to bat for the environment and gives the information to the authorities. That's found in the Ontario Environmental Protection Act, the Ontario Water Resources Act and the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights. There must be something in the bill to provide a remedy for the employee after he has been fired, laid off, had his pay cut or whatever because he cooperated with the authorities. I say that's sorely lacking.

With respect to the penalties and offences, I'm happy to see that the penalties have been increased, but some matters are sorely lacking. For instance, there's nothing in the penalty clause that increases the penalty for a second offence. That's common in all environmental legislation, and in almost all legislation setting down offences and penalties. There's nothing in the bill providing - significantly, this is in subsection 20(2) of the Atomic Energy Control Act, which says that:

Where a company...commits an offence...any officer, director or agent of the company...who directed, authorized, assented to, acquiesced in or participated in the commission of the offence is a party to and guilty of the offence...

That's standard offence legislation in the Criminal Code, in all environmental legislation in Canada, and it was even in the old Atomic Energy Control Act.

So why isn't it proposed in this new legislation? That's the clause that brings home to individuals the responsibility for corporate acts.

Equally important, I don't think I've seen a piece of environmental legislation in any country that doesn't specifically make it an offence to discharge, or permit the discharge, or release into the environment of radioactive substances. There's no specific clause in this bill that provides such legislation. Termination of a licence could result in that type of offence, but what about a situation where there is no licence? There are lots of possibilities for people coming into possession of radioactive substances and negligently releasing radioactivity into the environment and harming people. That clause should be in the bill.

With respect to the size of penalties against corporations, we suggest the monetary penalty should be increased. Otherwise it would be looked upon by a corporation as simply the cost of doing business. As well, the bill should include a clause that places a positive duty upon officers and directors of corporations to take all reasonable care to make certain there aren't preventable, unnecessary radioactive releases into the environment. An example of this type of legislation is section 194 of Ontario's Environmental Protection Act.

.1150

The bill by itself does not provide for environmental assessments and it remains to be seen how Canada's environmental assessment legislation will apply to this bill, but we'll be most interested in ascertaining that. For instance, don't you think there should be some sort of public inquiry or evidence called in a public forum that relates to the import of plutonium from the United States? It has to come in by truck or by airplane, one or the other. Shouldn't there be hearings into that?

Finally, to get back to my original comment, whose security is at risk here? Is it the nation of Canada or is it the citizens of Canada? Or is the danger here only to the nuclear establishment, because they don't want the citizens of Canada to have the information about their industry? All the evidence points to that being the only reason.

Thank you.

Ms Kock: I have a few points before we finish. Under clause 24, the area of licensing of facilities in the proposed legislation - as I mentioned before, we have some experience with that through our interventions. I can't emphasize enough the need to remove the words ``in the opinion of the Commission'' from this clause that deals with commission decision-making on licensing. The commission must be objective in its decision-making. However, this implies a subjective approach, which in our view is inappropriate.

There should also be specific provisions for public participation in all licensing and relicensing processes. Public participation is never mentioned in this bill in the context of licensing and relicensing, and we feel it should be specifically outlined.

Finally, a very large issue for us in Durham region is emergency planning. An idea I want to put to you is that this should somehow be put out through the legislation, that emergency planning be a requirement of licensing. This is the situation in the United States, where a nuclear reactor won't get a licence without a fully implemented and regularly tested nuclear emergency plan.

In Ontario we are facing a lot of problems with getting emergency planning up and running around the three nuclear sites - Bruce, Pickering and Darlington - because of a reluctance on the part of Ontario Hydro. This is seen as a public relations headache, but it's not. It's really important to our community to have good emergency plan. So our suggestion is that nuclear emergency plans - the implementation and regular testing of them - become a condition of relicensing for major nuclear facilities like the stations that Ontario Hydro operates.

I would like to conclude our presentation now. Thank you for your attention.

The Chairman: Thank you. I will now call on Mr. Boyd.

Mr. Boyd: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to introduce Mr. Hong Huynh, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Society, who would like to make a few introductory remarks.

[Translation]

Mr. Hong M. Huynh (President, Canadian Nuclear Society): We thank you for giving us the opportunity to comment on Bill C-23. My name is Hong Huynh and I am the President of the Canadian Nuclear Society.

[English]

The Canadian Nuclear Society is an organization of professionals involved in or interested in nuclear science and technology in Canada. We currently have about 1,000 members. The primary objectives of the society are: to act as a forum for the exchange of information relating to nuclear technology, more specifically, members of national and international scientific and learned societies; to hold meetings for the presentation, discussion and publication of scientific and technical papers relating to nuclear technology; and to foster the development and utilization of nuclear science and technology for peaceful purposes.

.1155

[Translation]

The Canadian Nuclear Society is headed by a board elected by members and responsible for policy and program development. Several members of the board also chair committees.

The Canadian Nuclear Society is made up of 12 local chapters and five technical divisions, all aiming for the personal involvment of members. Local chapters have been founded on a geographical basis. Their main activity consists in holding meetings and workshops on specific subjects, often of local interest. The technical divisions are called upon, on a disciplinary basis, to deal with technical and specific areas. They organize national and international conferences and ensure that there is a Canadian participation in various forums for the exchange of ideas and knowledge on a worldwide basis.

[English]

The activity of the society encompasses one aspect of the use of nuclear energy, including uranium mining and refining, nuclear power, medical and industrial use of radioisotopes, management of radioactive waste, and associated research and development.

Each year the society organizes several technical conferences, symposiums, seminars and courses on a wide variety on nuclear-related topics. The society quarterly publishes the CNS Bulletin, which is a combined technical journal and communication medium for the society and its members.

The Canadian Nuclear Society is a member of the International Nuclear Societies Council and, in concert with that council, has participated in international studies on the future of nuclear energy and in international activities related to nuclear safety.

The following submission has been prepared by a special committee appointed by the governing council of the society. With me today are Mr. Ken Smith and Fred Boyd, who are CNS council members. Mr. Fred Boyd will continue the CNS submission.

Mr. Boyd: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, Mr. Huynh has outlined the nature, membership and activities of our society. I would like now to speak briefly to the brief - I hope you have the written copy of it - we submitted last week.

Our submission reflects the perspective of professionals involved in or associated with Canada's nuclear program. We, perhaps understandably, believe that nuclear science and technology has been and continues to be of great benefit to the people of Canada and to the world.

Nuclear power provides about one-sixth of the electrical power in Canada and, in doing so, eliminates thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases and other emissions that would come from the only practical alternative - fossil fuels.

Canadian-produced radioisotopes are used in hundreds of thousands of medical, diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Research and development related to the nuclear program has had many spin-offs and has developed further insights into many areas.

As a society, we welcome the introduction of the proposed Nuclear Safety and Control Act. While recognizing that the Atomic Energy Control Board has been an effective regulator over the last 50 years, we concur with the conclusion of the Auditor General in his 1995 report that there is a need to replace the 50-year-old Atomic Energy Control Act.

Our comments are very specific to the bill. First of all, we agree with the stated purpose of the proposed act. Clause 3 states in part that the purpose of the proposed act is to provide for the development, use, etc., of nuclear energy ``in a manner that prevents an unreasonable risk'' to security, environment, health and safety.

We emphasize the word ``unreasonable'' and are pleased to see that it is repeated in clause 9, which states the objectives of the commission. In our minds, the word ``unreasonable'' is very important. There is a tendency in today's society to seek zero risk. No activity has zero risk. Some risks are very small, so small we ignore them. The appropriate role for a regulatory agency such as the proposed nuclear safety and control commission is to prevent unreasonable risk, not to try to prevent any risk. We are pleased to see the bill recognizes that.

.1200

There are, however, clauses in the bill where this modification is missing, in particular in clause 44 on regulation-making powers. In this regard, we have made a number of specific recommendations for modifications of parts of clause 44 to ensure that aspect is retained.

Other significant aspects of the bill that we support are the power to obtain financial guarantees for decommissioning and ongoing waste, and the power for more formal cooperation with the provinces, where there has already been a great deal of work over the years.

Our written submission includes specific recommendations to several clauses of the bill. First of all please note, if you have the written submission, there is a typographical error in our parts 2.3 and 2.4. The referenced clause should be subclause 21(1) instead of 20(1).

Our first specific recommendation concerns the definition of ``nuclear substance'', which is one of the fundamental areas of control envisioned under the bill. We are concerned that part of the definition of ``nuclear substance'' in paragraph 2(c) defines it as ``a radioactive nuclide''. We are concerned because radioactive nuclides are everywhere, including in all of our bodies. We do not think the Parliament wishes the new commission to control all people and all things.

Members of the committee, during previous witness periods, have asked about the role of the new commission in education. We note the bill provides for dissemination of information, and we support that, but we would like to see that such information be scientific and objective. Perhaps the clause in the bill might be modified in that regard.

Other witnesses have expressed concern about the cost of licences and the cost of licensing. As it stands now, and it appears to be continued in the bill, the regulator can expand its staff, its work, and charge whatever fees are required. Beyond the fees, however, there is a great amount of work required to respond to regulatory requirements. Our members are very aware of the amount of work entailed. Many of them are involved in answering those questions. We believe there needs to be some limitation or control over the amount and the number and extent of questions posed by the regulator. We suggest the bill include a mechanism for open review of the commission's program as well as its financial records - the programs that are the basis for their fees.

We have made several specific recommendations for changes in subclause 44(1), which deals with the regulation-making power, to reflect our support for the purpose of the bill, i.e. to prevent unreasonable risk.

In paragraphs 44(l)(h) and 44(1)(k), again under the regulation-making power, we fear this will lead to prescriptive rule for the duties of nuclear workers. As experience here and elsewhere has shown, this can be dangerous. The regulator should not define the duties of the individual workers. That responsibility for safety must remain with the licensees.

.1205

The strict obligation in clause 49 for workers to report regardless of strikes, walkouts, etc., is in our view too sweeping. We can envision situations where a worker may not be able to report. When this is combined with the new fine structure, rising as high as $1 million, this could be unduly onerous for an individual worker. In that regard, we recommend there be separate and hopefully lower fines prescribed for individuals as compared to corporations.

Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you and present our thoughts on this important legislation. We hope that since we have provided specific recommendations on specific clauses, when you proceed clause by clause you might refer to our recommendations.

I would like, before closing, to comment briefly on some of the comments that have been made before. It was mentioned that there was a stagnation of nuclear power development in the world. That is not true. It is true in North America but it's not true in eastern Europe and it certainly isn't -

The Chairman: Do you mind if I interrupt you for a second? We have expended the 10 minutes. When we ask the questions it will give an opportunity to be fair to everybody to maybe give a critique of other people's. I'm trying to be fair to all of the groups.

Mr. Boyd: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I'm sure you'll have an opportunity during the question and answer period.

Mr. Canuel.

[Translation]

Mr. Canuel (Matapédia - Matane): The presentations made by the witnesses, and I thank them for those, are both enlightening and confusing. We are given so much information. Please correct me if I am wrong, but when listening to some of you, I had the feeling that we should almost bring about a complete prohibition of nuclear power in Canada. Others are saying that nuclear energy is clean and very safe - and I am not saying merely safe, but very safe - and that there is nothing to worry about. On the other hand, some are saying that we should put the emphasis on safety. I agree entirely. When we give a permit, we should demand safeguards. Certainly, nuclear energy should not be taken lightly.

If in my area of of the country people are demonstrating in the street because they do not want to have a hog farm in their backyard, it means that environment is quite important to them. If I was asked wether I want a nuclear plant in my backyard, I'm not sure that I would say yes right away.

On the other hand, we know that nuclear power is quite valuable, that that industry creates jobs and that it can be exported. Other countries are asking for it.

There is a sort of ambivalence or dichotomy that is difficult to deal with. Yes, we must protect the environment, but I am not prepared to say no to nuclear energy. In the middle term, we must past Bill C-23, but I will probably propose some amendments to it.

Should we present this bill to the public and consult the people in making sure that they fully understand its importance? As the gentleman was saying earlier, we will be stuck with it for the next 25 years. Perhaps it is worth taking a long hard look at it.

.1210

As for the regulation, people in the nuclear industry are wondering whether it should come under the Department of Environment or the Department of Natural Resources.

I have listened to your arguments and I find that you are entirely right. If one of these departments does the promotion and the other must protect the environment, it is somewhat difficult to imagine the same department being responsible for both. I am fully aware of it.

That ambivalence could make things more difficult if we had federal and provincial regulations and if the two departments were at odds.

As far as I'm concerned, we are already over-regulated in Canada. How could we come up with something that would be acceptable and could be helpful to everybody? We would almost need some international environmental regulation. All countries would have more or less the same regulation. In this way, we could create a commission that would sit from time to time.

So I would ask those who are more specialized in the environmental field to examine whether it would be possible for us parliamentarians to make that happen. It could not be done overnight, but we could make it happen within a few years.

Some specialists have told us that there already have been some meetings on this matter. I said: ``Great! But it still does not have force of law''. Should the UN take charge of this? I don't know.

I would like you to give me some clarifications on that point. I have some reservations, especially since you are telling me that nuclear energy is growing instead of being in decline. I would like your comments on this.

If you're telling me that nuclear energy is on the decline, I would like you to give me evidence of that.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you.

Who would like to answer first?

Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Edwards: The question of which minister the agency reports to is extremely important, because frankly - and I believe this is true even for many people who have been on both sides of the question, whether they're pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear - many people who have a fair-minded appreciation of the difficulties of policy issues in this area have recognized that nuclear policy in Canada has been unduly secretive from the beginning, and that it has never cast off that secretiveness.

The lack of any mandated requirement for public participation in or public hearings on licensing is really regrettable, and is directly contrary to the expressed views of the previous president of the Atomic Energy Control Board, Mr. René Lévesque.

.1215

A few years ago he made a submission to the Treasury Board - and I'd be glad to make copies of it available to the committee members - in which he expressed his vision of what the Atomic Energy Control Board should become. The language is quite different from what you see in this bill. In his view, mandatory public hearings were essential, and this was the direction in which the Atomic Energy Control Board should be moving.

He also said the board should be expanded, not, as this bill says, to allow for other areas of expertise.... Rather, not in the bill itself but in the preamble to the bill, which is a description given by the Department of Natural Resources in connection with the act, they say that by expanding the size of the commission, we will allow for other types of expertise on the board.

That's not what Mr. René Lévesque called for. Mr. René Lévesque called for more participation from the public, from the workers, on the commission. It's quite a different perspective.

It would be informative for the members of the committee to take a look at Mr. Lévesque's presentation to the Treasury Board of a few years ago. If you don't have it, I'd be glad to make a copy available to you. Just compare point-by-point his vision then of what the board should be moving towards and what we see in this bill.

The real problem is partly the fact that we're talking about the Minister of Natural Resources. If this bill were being sponsored not by the Minister of Natural Resources but by the Minister of the Environment, it would have different language, it would have a different flavour, it would have different provisions and it would be a much healthier development.

The Chairman: Does anybody else want to comment on this?

Ms Ostling: I'd like to comment first of all on the decline of the nuclear industry internationally.

The study I was referring to came from the Safe Energy Communication Council. It showed that as of January 1, 1996, only 34 nuclear power plants were under active construction, 84 reactors had been permanently shut down and the average operating lifespan was less than half of its predicted 40-year lifespan. Globally there were 434 commercial nuclear power plants in operation, and this represented an increase of only nine over the number in operation in 1990.

I can provide copies of this study. I also have a written submission for you, and if there's any other additional information you want to have referenced, I would be happy to provide you with documentation.

The other issue Mr. Canuel raised was the question of international regulation. One of the things I've been tracking over the past couple of years is the G-7 summits. In both G-7 summits of the past two years, there have been statements on nuclear safety. I think this is because the pollution that would arise from a severe nuclear accident knows no international boundaries, as we know from the case of Chernobyl. That is why this issue is being raised more and more at the international level.

I agree we need to examine this current legislation with reference to the international regulations that exist.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Boyd, I suspect you have a comment.

Mr. Boyd: Yes. I'll go in reverse order of Mr. Canuel's comments.

In the international realm, the International Convention on Nuclear Safety is just going into effect this month. Canada was a leading agent in the development of this international convention. Dr. Bishop was the first signatory of the convention when it was drawn up about a year and a half ago.

As I say, now sufficient numbers of countries have ratified it, so it is going into effect this month. That will create a new international regime to move toward the standardization of nuclear power safety.

.1220

On the federal-provincial area that was mentioned, this bill specifically gives the new commission the power to work more closely with the provinces. In a formal sense, the Atomic Energy Control Board has attempted to do that over the years, but has had to do it informally. Despite that, it has been fairly effective.

On the question of whether or not nuclear power is expanding or contracting in the world, I don't have figures in front of me. I believe Ms Ostling's figures are somewhat outdated, but there is certainly a very growing trend for nuclear power, especially in Asia and in eastern Europe. In North America, as you can observe, it has been stagnant.

The Chairman: Mr. Canuel, for a follow-up.

[Translation]

Mr. Canuel: Countries that do not sign a convention are not bound by that convention. If a requirement was imposed by all countries, in my view, it would be much stronger than any convention. I'm not saying that it is not a good first step, but any country is free to be part of a convention.

[English]

Mr. Boyd: Unfortunately, we're moving into the realm of international law, which is certainly beyond my expertise. Also, as we know, there is no mechanism for international enforcement. So the only way we can operate is to move forward with conventions, such as those being developed. As I mentioned, Canada has been a leading agent in that.

The Chairman: Ms Kock, do you have a comment to make?

Ms Kock: I have just a very brief comment. I think it's important to keep in mind, when we talk about international agreements, conventions, and what not on nuclear safety, that the source of a lot of this initiative is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is an agency of the United Nations. We believe its mandate is problematic in this area because it promotes the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. There's an implied role, on the part of the IAEA, that it's there to protect the global public from accidents and national and international security problems, but its main drive is to get nuclear power established everywhere. That's what it works most toward. So we have a UN agency that doesn't have the mandate we need as a global population.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. We'll now turn to Mr. Ringma.

Mr. Ringma (Nanaimo - Cowichan): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I'd like to address the issue of the nuclear business being in a phase of contraction or expansion, or whatever it is. I'd like to offer the comment, as a British Columbian, that we have no need for nuclear energy out there because we have enough hydro power. But what has been happening in British Columbia, which I think is relevant, is that B.C. Hydro has been stepping back a bit and deciding it doesn't need to build more dams; it needs to economize. It has been successfully doing that and has cut back on the requirement for more generation.

That being the case there - and I suspect there something similar is going on in Ontario - it would explain to me why there is a drop in requirement, domestically at least, for both hydro-generated electricity as well as nuclear.

But when I look at the international scene, I see something different. As expressed by Mr. Boyd, there is an increase in Asia and eastern Europe. So I think it is important for this committee to know what the facts are. Therefore, I would welcome Ms Ostling, and you, sir, to table with us any information you have on that subject. It would be helpful to us, I think.

.1225

That brings forward the next area of interest to me, which is public education. I quite agree that in my lifetime of looking at it, it has been cloaked in secrecy. As a result, the public is really ignorant of what is going on there. I think as a country, and even as a government, we should be making more information available to the public and encouraging public education.

That ties us then immediately into the field of Bill C-23 and what provisions should be there, not just for licensing and hearing the public on licensing agreements, but - I don't know if it's possible - for making it a responsibility of the new commission to help educate the public, as well as doing these other public hearing things that might be necessary, on all aspects of it, whether it's the importation of nuclear waste or anything else.

I would really like to see us collectively going in that direction. I wonder if you have any observations to offer as to how that might be facilitated specifically, particularly with regard to what Bill C-23 should contain to help that new commission in its work.

Mr. Edwards: I couldn't agree more with you. I think it's unlikely to happen in the best way if it's under the Minister of Natural Resources, because I think the ministry is primarily concerned about expanding mines and energy resources. It has responsibilities in the realms of mining, nuclear reactor construction, development and so on, so I believe the educational function, insofar as there should be one, would be best met under another ministry.

I think there should be an obligation for education, and the education should not be promotional in nature; it should be general information. In particular, it should be information on safety and environmental hazards, not simply of a nature to reassure and soothe people or to numb them, but to have them understand the nature of the hazards.

We know there are hazards. People know this stuff is hazardous, but they don't know why because they've never heard it really clearly explained. When they turn to a body like the Canadian Nuclear Society or the Atomic Energy Control Board, they very often don't get a real explanation they can take home that makes them say ``Now I understand why it's hazardous''. Rather, what they get are reassurances. That's not education. Reassurances are not education.

Also, regardless of whether nuclear energy goes this way or that way, whether it's going to expand or contract, we need an agency that can really address the problems.

In the first 50 years of the nuclear industry, those problems were mainly problems of licensing, developing, authorizing and controlling. But now there is a growing body of problems that are orphans, like these tailings I pointed out earlier. This is abandoned. This is an orphan. The Province of Ontario is left with this problem. We've heard that even in cases where the tailings are not yet orphans, governments are prepared to assume the burden on the taxpayers to deal with these problems. I think we need an agency that's able to deal with problems in a more proactive way not just by licensing facilities and responding to industry initiatives but by identifying problems and clarifying what they are.

For instance, there is something in the bill about decommissioning. The commission has the power to enforce financial arrangements for decommissioning. Is that correct? How can it do that if it doesn't know how much decommissioning costs? How is it going to know what decommissioning costs are until it actually does some decommissioning?

.1230

As I said, there are a couple of reactors that could be decommissioned. The industry has no interest in doing it, however, because it's an expense and they'd rather not incur that expense. But in terms of the public good, they should be decommissioned because we have to find out how much it's going to cost. If we don't have realistic costs, we're not going to know what's what.

So I think we need a separate ministry with a separate mandate that is not just to respond to industry requests for licensing and to control radioactive emissions here and there, but is to educate, to involve the public, and to seek out problem areas that are going to affect the public interest and identify them and bring them to public attention.

The Chairman: Ms Kock.

Ms Kock: It's a very interesting area to be pursuing right now under this legislation. It reminds me of an experience I had while working with colleagues in the U.S.

Every utility that runs a reactor in the United States is required to file documentation in the local public library in the community where that facility exists. I was at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reading room in the local public library in Monroe, Michigan, beside the Fairmeath Station. They actually had a computer terminal linking that public library with the documents room in Washington. The NRC, by the way, is the equivalent of the Atomic Energy Control Board in the United States.

So there are some very creative ways that we, as the public, could access the documents relevant to the facilities that are in our communities. Right now, however, I have to place orders with the Atomic Energy Control Board, and they then send documents to me. I'm running out of room. I'm tracking the two major facilities in our area, Pickering and Darlington. It's very difficult to have access to that if you're not willing to receive and store all of the documents.

That's a suggestion I hope the committee will consider.

Mr. Ringma: Can I just pursue that with -

The Chairman: Mr. Boyd wants to make a comment first, and then I'll get to you.

Mr. Boyd: Mr. Ringma, certainly our society very much agrees with the need for education. In fact, one of our activities is going around to schools and elsewhere to meet with teachers, with students, and whoever.

Referring to the bill specifically, subclause 21(1) gives the commission the power to disseminate information and so forth. We very much support that, but I would like to suggest - and in this way, I guess I differ perhaps just in a nuance with Dr. Edwards - that we believe the primary role of this commission is to be an effective, respected, credible regulator. That means they have to be perceived to be completely objective. The informational or educational material that they provide must therefore be perceived to be very objective. That's a difficult role.

I don't know whether it's appropriate for an act, but one of our specific suggestions in here is to actually throw the word ``objective'' in that particular clause, so that it reads: ``The Commission may...disseminate...objective information to the public...''. Otherwise, it will be perceived to be biased in one way or the other and it will therefore lose some of its credibility as a regulator.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Boyd.

Mr. Ringma, you had a short follow-up.

Mr. Ringma: To follow up, it gives me a positive feeling to see that we may be collectively heading in a good direction. That is, perhaps we are looking for some other agency or proper place to handle this function.

There is a specific incident that I'll aim at your comments, which I welcomed. Contiguous to my own riding of Nanaimo - Cowichan, there is an organization called the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Range. You get both sides of the problem there. The public doesn't really know what's going on, and the Department of National Defence really says it is secret and won't let on anything about it. And the other side of this is that you get misinformation there. You get stories of exaggeration of the great hazards that are there, but they are not entirely based on fact.

So you get the two sides, one a secretive one saying we'll only tell you this, the other launching unsubstantiated things. And the public is the victim of this because they sit in the middle not really knowing anything. Who do they believe?

.1235

I think we're going in the right direction. I also think everyone agrees that we should look carefully at who, or what agency, should be there, and at how we ensure that this agency gives out information that both is and is seen to be objective.

The Chairman: Mr. Chapman or Ms Kock.

Mr. Chapman: Specifically, sir, I would refer you to paragraphs 9(b) and 21(1)(e). Paragraph 9(b) of the bill states that one of the commission's objectives is ``to disseminate scientific, technical and regulatory information''. This clause does not have words that indicate that this information must go to the public. The clause says nothing about who the proposed recipient of this information is to be. So that is one amendment.

I then refer you, sir, to paragraph 21(1)(e). This clause describes the powers of the commission to disseminate information to the public. In other words, it just enables it to do so. There should be a requirement in that clause that makes it mandatory for the commission to disseminate information to the public. What is there to hide here?

Mr. Ringma: Okay, thank you very much.

The Chairman: Ms Ostling.

Ms Ostling: I just have a question with regard to tabling information on the issue of the decline of the nuclear industry. What would be the process for that? Do I just submit this information to the -

The Chairman: Table it with the clerk.

Ms Ostling: Okay.

I'd like to make a comment with regard to that, too. One of the reasons for why we see any increase in nuclear technology in countries in Asia and in eastern Europe is precisely that it is in decline in North America. One of the ways for the nuclear industry to offset its decline in North America is by increasing its efforts to sell this technology to other countries. That's something that we really have to address.

The Chairman: Okay, thank you.

You can say something very briefly, Mr. Boyd, because I have to move on.

Mr. Boyd: Very quickly, it's not because of the efforts to sell. It's really the fact that the economies there are growing and need the energy.

Going back to your question, Mr. Ringma, one of them referred to the problems of dealing with the Department of National Defence. If you're concerned about that problem, you might wish to give further consideration to clause 5 of the bill, which provides certain exemptions to DND.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Reed.

Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I've been knocking around this debate almost as long as my friend Gord Edwards.

I should say, Ms Kock, that information on Pickering and Darlington should be available in the Queen's Park library. I was the guy who made the motion on the select committee to move all of the nuclear documents from Ontario Hydro to the Queen's Park library, including the commercially confidential material, which you are allowed to see but not allowed to photocopy, I believe - or something like that. So I hope your rec room or kitchen doesn't get too full.

I have a concern, Mr. Chapman. You made some comments about asking for information and being told that you couldn't have it.

Mr. Chapman: That's right, sir.

Mr. Reed: I was wondering if you would be good enough to equip the committee, through the clerk, with what you specifically asked for and were refused. Could you do that?

Mr. Chapman: Yes, we will provide to you, in writing, both our request letter and the replies.

Mr. Reed: All right, thank you.

Mr. Chapman: In fact, Ms Kock just recently attempted to get in writing what the reply was. It wasn't available for today or we would have brought it with us. There were about ten documents, some of which were refused because of national security reasons. But we were talking about the waste site at Chalk River.

Mr. Reed: Well, I'm quite concerned that this information is apparently not being made available.

Mr. Chapman: We'll provide you with that.

Mr. Reed: Ms Ostling, you mentioned a couple of things, and I don't know whether or not I understood you correctly. You mentioned the figure of $13 billion in 1995 as a subsidy.

.1240

Ms Ostling: Yes. When calculated in real 1995 dollars, taking into account inflation, the subsidies to the nuclear industry up to March 31, 1995, amounts to $13 billion.

Mr. Reed: So that's over the four years.

Ms Ostling: Yes.

Mr. Reed: I also understood you to say that the AECB acts only in an emergency. Did you make that statement?

Ms Ostling: I don't think so.

Mr. Reed: Okay. I must have misheard you.

You made another statement about the cost in human life in terms of mining and the nuclear industry. I'm not sure whether you were referring to the world situation or whether you were relating it specifically to Canada.

Ms Ostling: Do you mean the cost of a nuclear accident?

Mr. Reed: No. I just forget how you phrased it. It had to do with the impact on human life and health with regards to accidents in the mining industry and so on. I'm curious to know about this, because it seems to me that if you were to look at coal mining, for instance, in terms of the relative impact on danger to human life, you would find that coal mining would not stand up very well in the picture.

Ms Ostling: Even the impact of fossil fuel emissions is a very real concern, but what I was referring to in my presentation was the costs of a potential accident in a nuclear power plant in Canada, which would be very high.

As you know, we have examples of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. We know that accident cost Chernobyl billions of dollars and that Three Mile Island was also a very expensive accident. So this is what I was referring to specifically.

The other associated costs, of course, that I mentioned are the nuclear subsidies. These have been very high in Canada, as we have just discussed here. They had a huge impact on our debt. Potentially, the subsidies have also served as a way of directing our energy choices towards nuclear power rather than, for example, energy efficiency.

As Mr. Ringma mentioned, B.C. has made great inroads in economizing. One of the primary ways that Canada could reduce its dependency on nuclear power is through energy efficiency.

There are many studies that show that energy efficiency and renewables would be more cost-effective for Canada. They would provide more jobs, and they would be safer and cleaner for the environment. The important thing is not to set up a dichotomy of options between nuclear power and fossil fuels. There are so many options that we could be pursuing. Canada could really become a leader in these kinds of technologies that sorely need to be developed further, both in Canada and internationally.

Mr. Edwards: In connection with uranium mining, Mr. Reed, it just brought to mind a document that was prepared years ago by the the British Columbia Medical Association. It looks specifically at the the risks to uranium miners, and actually offers some pretty sharp criticisms to the Atomic Energy Control Board's calculations of those risks, and gives the medical evidence on the contrary. So if you like, I could make that available to you.

Mr. Reed: I'd appreciate that very much.

Mr. Edwards: I think it addresses the mining question, which you touched upon.

Mr. Reed: We're always faced with this debate. There are coal miners killed tragically in Canada on an ongoing basis.

.1245

Mr. Edwards: This is rather tangential to the question of how you best regulate an industry like the nuclear industry. I feel one has to be prepared for all eventualities.

I don't believe the Canadian government has really seriously faced the possibility of this industry winding down and phasing out. The difficulty is that if you don't plan for it as a possibility, then you have chaos.

I remember that the General Accounting Office in the United States issued a report some years ago saying that the prospect of the American nuclear industry ending poses serious political and economic problems. Long after the relevant institutions have disappeared, we're going to have decontamination disposal problems that will last at least a hundred years after the last reactor has shut down.

So I believe it is a responsible role of government not to try to decide ahead of time that it's going to go this way or that way, but to plan for all eventualities. I don't believe this legislation really takes into account the possibility that nuclear power, through no fault of its own, perhaps, or just through the circumstances, just doesn't fly.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Reed: I have one final brief comment to make to Mr. Boyd.

In your opening statement, Mr. Boyd, you suggested that nuclear power was the only practical alternative to fossil fuel. I'd like to extend an invitation to you, sir, to come to Haliburton in the next couple of months and visit my power plant. It doesn't emit CO2 into the air, and it doesn't produce radioactive waste. It has a very minimal impact on the environment. That is my conflict of interest at this committee.

The Chairman: Mrs. Cowling.

Mr. Boyd: I don't want to walk into a debate.

Many of us fully support the various alternative energy forms, but a good number of studies - and I do believe in them - show that for supplying large amounts of power, they're not practical or not likely to be practical in the near future. But that's a long debate.

Mr. Reed referred earlier to the emergency planning problems. I just want to point out to the committee that emergency planning outside of the nuclear plants is a provincial responsibility. As I think some of you know, we live in a federal-provincial environment that has certain advantages and disadvantages. It's been an ongoing problem over the years.

Under the federal legislation, the Atomic Energy Control Board has required the operators of nuclear plants to have effective emergency plans of their own, but outside the plant it is the responsibility of the province. This has been a very uncertain area over the decades.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Reed.

I note that tomorrow we have as a witness Mr. Jim Ellard who is with the Ministry of the Solicitor General. He is the coordinator of emergency measures in Ontario, so we'll be able to ask him directly.

Mrs. Cowling.

Mrs. Cowling (Dauphin - Swan River): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've had several witnesses before this committee, and one of the things we hear over and over again is that there is a need to replace the 50-year-old Atomic Energy Control Act. I respect your views on protecting the environment, and as a government we too want a safe and healthy environment for nuclear energy. Of course, that's why we've had all of the various players at the table.

I would like to go to certain clauses of the bill, because I think this will help us to be sure we in fact bring forward a bill that reflects all of the concerns of the witnesses we have had before the committee.

One of the issues raised today was the concept of unreasonable nuclear risk. I'm wondering if you believe it is necessary to include it under clause 2 of the bill. I would also like you to define for us what you think ``unreasonable risk'' is.

.1250

The Chairman: Does anyone want to give that a go?

Mr. Edwards: I could take a stab at it. I think that what's unreasonable depends on who you are. If you are a representative or proponent or advocate of the nuclear industry, what might be unreasonable is something that jeopardizes the industry. The shutdown of a plant might be unreasonable. On the other hand, if you're an agency devoted only to safeguarding the environment or public health and safety, your view of what's unreasonable may be different.

I find it rather ironic that this is an industry that prides itself, in many cases, on sticking to hard numbers, factual calculations, physics and engineering. They often accuse critics of being rather vague, but when it comes to environmental protection and radiation standards, they gravitate very quickly to these vague words.

There is a danger here. I believe that such words are dangerous. I believe they're particularly dangerous if you have the bill being administered by an agency that has a real or even perceived conflict of interest. I think there's a real problem there. It should be quantified. The industry likes to pride itself on quantifying things and it should not be left in quite that way.

Mrs. Cowling: Could I ask you, then, to table before the committee what you believe is reasonable and unreasonable nuclear risk? If you can define that for us, it would help us very much.

Mr. Edwards: If you want me to define those terms, reasonable and unreasonable, I think you have already received the answer. It depends upon who is deciding the reasonableness.

That is why I think René Lévesque, the previous head of the Atomic Energy Control Board, was suggesting that an expanded board include more representation from the people who really take the risks, namely the public and the workers, rather than just more areas of expertise. What we need on the board is not more areas of expertise, but more representation from the ordinary people who are being asked to take those risks. If it comes to a judgment of reasonable and unreasonable, I think you have to ensure that the people making that judgment are free not only of conflict of pecuniary interest, but of conflict of ideological interest. There is a certain ideological element in this nuclear discussion and we'd be foolish to ignore it.

Unless the word ``unreasonable'' could be replaced by quantitative criteria, then the only way I would feel comfortable living with that word would be to have the judgment made by people who are more representative, like a jury. The jury system is based on the idea that if you take twelve good-hearted, ordinary people, they will somehow come to a better decision than the experts.

The Chairman: Before we go on, Ms Kock wants to comment.

Ms Kock: I think you'll hear quite a bit about this from Norman Rubin on Thursday. He's been involved in a review of the tritium standards in drinking water.

But I will undertake to table with you the information I have about that particular debate. What we ended up with in Ontario was a health-based assessment of what the tritium standard should be. There was total disagreement between the committee that set it and the industry, which resulted in the industry saying, if you set it there, we'll have to shut down Pickering and that's unacceptable. There's blackmail with our health standards happening here. I will file that information with you so that you can read it yourself.

Mr. Edwards: I will also pass along some information on that.

The Chairman: Mr. Boyd, did you have a comment?

Mr. Boyd: If you wish documents, I can provide you with a pile so high on risk evaluation. There is, I would say, quite wide consensus within the scientific community about what is considered a minimal risk. You're talking about numbers like 10 to the minus 6, 10 to the minus 7 chance of death per year. That's an international sort of consensus.

I would agree that it really depends on who is making the evaluation. The FEARO panel that is looking at the concept of waste disposal in Canada has looked at this a fair bit and has had a number of sub-studies done on it. It really comes down to what is acceptable, and then you end up asking, acceptable to whom? Obviously, in our society it would have to be acceptable to a majority in society. How do you determine that? There are various ways.

.1255

It's not easy, but I would say, Mrs. Cowling, that there are definite scientific determinations of what is considered to be a minimal risk. I would suggest that the terminology in the bill is the most rational one within our society, and you leave it to an appropriate body to determine - maybe not just by themselves but also through a wider mechanism - what is acceptable.

The Chairman: You have a follow-up, Mrs. Cowling?

Mrs. Cowling: Yes, I do have a follow-up and it's with respect to the public debate - I think it was mentioned several times this morning - on the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. I'm wondering about the timeframe of that and who would be involved in that debate?

Mr. Edwards: If there were to be a debate surrounding this particular subject?

Mrs. Cowling: Yes.

Mr. Edwards: As a matter of fact, I'm president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, which was formed in 1975. Our goal then was to bring about a public debate, which we thought would be in everybody's best interest, and to put the issues on the table. Decision-makers would have a chance to hear both sides under guidelines that would allow for cross-examination and a study of both types of arguments. This has happened to some degree in some provincial forums - for example, the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning, which I mentioned earlier. I think it legitimized a great deal of the nuclear debate.

People on the pro-nuclear side had often accused the anti-nuclear people of being totally misinformed, but the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning found that there were good points to be considered on both sides. The debate had some very legitimate issues that had to be discussed. I find it shameful, as a Canadian, that this country has never had at the federal level any form of public debate about whether we really want to continue with nuclear power or not. I think it's astounding, considering the size of the nuclear establishment, considering the amount of subsidies we've devoted to it, that this has not happened.

I believe the time is long overdue. We're talking about a 50-year anniversary of this act, which we're now trying to replace. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to have this public debate and get on the public record at the federal level the arguments, pros and cons, and sift out the wheat from the chaff and use that as a guiding beacon for all future policy-making in this area.

I find it really distressing that, for example, I know that many people in the Department of Natural Resources, including the minister herself, have been influenced by a study commissioned by the nuclear industry, called the Ernst & Young study. I am absolutely confident that if anybody in government commissioned an independent review of that study they would find it is very shaky, very poorly done, and full of contradictory information. Why hasn't it been independently studied? Why has there been no critique from the government side of this information, this advice they're getting from the nuclear industry? I think it's directly related to the lack of any form of public debate.

If we had an open, honest public debate where things could be put on the table, then these assumptions could be discussed, they could be challenged, they could be weighed, and I think the result would be a much clearer view of what we know and what we only guess.

The Chairman: Ms Kock.

Ms Kock: I have a suggestion along these lines. I was delighted when I read the bill for the first time to see that there were two pieces of legislation being set up. One was on the regulation side and one on the side to allow for the ongoing work of the industry and the funding of that by the government. One suggestion we've made in our brief is that there be a clause added to the Nuclear Energy Act to ensure that it is reviewed at least once in the next three to five years.

I would add to this that it should maybe have a clause that necessitates regular review. It would require a complete opening up of the act, and of the rationale behind it and the continuing need for it. This need not impact on the establishment and the implementation of a good solid regulatory piece of legislation. They're now separate; that is an excellent move and we really support it.

.1300

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Chatters.

Mr. Chatters (Athabasca): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have endless questions and obviously we don't have time to get to them all today. Bob talked about the need for public understanding and a public process, and I agree with him totally.

The other issue I wanted to get some reaction to was the fact that the existing act is 50 years old. I would like to know what kind of fiscal liability that act has left behind for the Canadian taxpayer and the potential liability for future generations. I think that's very important.

The minister sat here and told us that the electrical power rates reflected the cost of nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning. I don't think it's possible to do that, because, as you said, nobody knows what those costs are. In your estimation, what is the existing taxpayer liability now, and do you have some estimates on where we're going on that with this bill?

Mr. Edwards: I think that's an excellent question. I think it should be an order of business, whether it's in connection with this bill or not. The Auditor General has done some of this work, but only tentatively.

The Auditor General in the last several reports has pointed out that for the AECL alone - leaving out Ontario Hydro and the mining companies up in Elliot Lake and so on - you're talking about unaccounted-for liabilities running into the hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars. These liabilities are not carried on the books of AECL, despite repeated criticisms from the Auditor General of Canada in that regard.

There is no actual separate funding that is dedicated to ameliorating those problems. If AECL has appropriated money, they spend that money on what they choose to spend it on. It's not designated that some of the money must be spent on ameliorating or remediating these problems.

When you talk about the utilities, which is a completely different thing, Ontario Hydro, New Brunswick Power and of course Hydro-Québec, there the situation is that although they are collecting a nominal amount - and you're right that they don't really know what the correct amount is - which is intended to pay for decommissioning of waste disposal, in fact there's no segregation of funds. That money does not exist. There is no account that has x amount of dollars in it for that purpose. This means that when it actually comes time to do the work, to decommission the reactors or to bury the waste, you have to borrow the money. You're talking about totally non-productive borrowing that would have to be done at the time the work is undertaken. The money is not set aside, it is not segregated in an interest-earning fund.

I do believe the Canadian government should undertake to do a comprehensive study of what are the liabilities, the decommissioning liabilities and the waste disposal liabilities. Let's tote them up and see what they are. Let's consider to what extent we may be adding to those liabilities by expanding facilities.

For instance, AECL wants an additional appropriation of $500 million to build two new reactors. That's an appropriation in which it's not only the $500 million you have to think about, but you have to also think about decommissioning those reactors down the line, the waste that those reactors will produce and so on.

It's time this industry was put on a business footing. The Auditor General of Canada has pointed out repeatedly that it's actually, in their view, quite unacceptable the way the books are being kept. Thank you.

Mr. Chatters: Do you see that the liability for disposal and decommissioning in reality is the taxpayers' liability?

Mr. Edwards: Indeed it is. I think it's accumulating and I believe there should be an accounting for it. There has to be a day of reckoning.

It's just as with the debt. When we talk about approaching the national debt...you can only ignore it for so long. There comes a time when you have to look it in the face and say, wow, what are we going to do about this?

Mr. Chatters: I'd like a reaction from Mr. Boyd on that.

.1305

Mr. Ken Smith (Treasurer, Canadian Nuclear Society): On the subject of the decommissioning and the waste disposal, I think if you had the utilities before you to explain what they are doing there, you'd be convinced they have in fact made more than adequate provision for the future - disposal of fuel, for example. Just recently we saw a report from New Brunswick Power that indicated they had set aside three times as much as they really needed to set aside in order to do that disposal of fuel. I don't think we as the CNS can respond to specific questions on that; I think you would need to get information from the utilities.

Mr. Chatters: How could they respond that they have an excess or they have enough? Nobody has identified what it is going to cost to dispose of nuclear fuel.

Mr. Smith: They've done a reasonably good estimate, I believe, of the future costs of the disposal. AECL has also done a -

An hon. member: [Inaudible - Editor]

Mr. Smith: I'm afraid I can't give you the number off the top of my head.

If you checked with AECL and the utilities, I think you would be convinced they've done a pretty good job of making an estimate. You're right, estimates must contain a reasonable contingency, and I believe they've incorporated that.

The Chairman: I know Ms Kock had her hand up.

Ms Kock: Thank you.

Just to clarify the different compartments of waste we're dealing with, I think it's important to separate the utility, high-level, and low-level waste from what the federal government and the federal taxpayers are liable for. That's specifically at the facilities funded by Parliament - AECL's facilities at Chalk River and Whiteshell.

We don't know - and AECL isn't about to reveal - what the clean-up costs at Chalk River and Whiteshell are, but we know the types of facilities that are on the property. Our group has been working at trying to clarify exactly what's on the property, and we've been blocked in that.

I think this is a much bigger problem than anyone has a handle on. For example, some of the documents I've just read indicate that with one facility at Chalk River where plutonium was processed in past decades, the people who worked in the facility no longer work for the agency. They don't know what's in the building. It's so contaminated they have to suit people up and send them in with remote cameras to take pictures of the area so they can go back to a safe area and try to figure what to take out next. We're talking about a multibillion-dollar clean-up job here, and nobody's willing to grapple with it yet.

That's quite separate from utility waste, which the utilities claim they are funding. That bill is about $13 billion for the high-level waste; that's the figure Mr. Smith is talking about. We don't have a figure on the Chalk River/Whiteshell clean-up, which is what the federal government is liable for because they've been funding it under the old act for 50 years.

Mr. Chatters: My concern is, as with issues about mining that this committee has dealt with before, that the actual dollars be set aside, and that they are there when the company is long gone so we don't end up with the orphans you talked about here, and that ultimately the taxpayers of all of Canada are responsible for.

Ms Kock: In this case, the company is a crown agency. It's us. We're doing it.

Mr. Edwards: I just want to clarify, although I don't disagree with what Irene said in of course separating AECL from the utilities - and I tried to do that too; perhaps I didn't succeed - that there are also other liabilities that are federal, not just AECL's.

We do have the sand-rock tailings here and we also have, in Quebec for example, a defunct reactor, the Gentilly-1 reactor, which is federal property. It's owned by AECL; it's their property. The decommissioning cost for that reactor will have to be paid for. It's been partially decommissioned but not totally dismantled. My organization has been urging for more than 10 years, in fact, that the Gentilly-1 reactor would be a very good reactor for the federal government to demonstrate decommissioning technology on.

There are a couple of good reasons for this. Number one is that the Gentilly-1 reactor turned out to be a fiasco. It never really operated properly; it only operated for 180 days total. The result is, it's less radioactive than a normal commercial power reactor, so it would be less risky for the workers. It would be possible to decommission that reactor, pretending it was ten times as radioactive as it is, and gain experience in how to do it and how much it would cost. This kind of thing, I think, is a responsible direction to be moving in.

.1310

Incidentally, it's even exportable technology, because the International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that by the turn of the century, which is just around the corner, there will be something like 100 commercial-scale nuclear reactors worldwide that need decommissioning, each one of them being a job running into the $500 million to $1 billion category. So we actually have business opportunities here too. In fact, there's more business opportunity in terms of radioactive clean-up and demolition, etc., than there is in expansion.

There are also other spin-offs, because you have to develop good robotics, which Canada already has a lead in, in order to do this well.

The Chairman: We're going to have to break very shortly, and I do have a couple of very quick questions, very specific questions.

Mr. Chapman, did I hear your testimony correctly when you were providing it, that you believe there is all kinds of activity that can take place with nuclear substances that is not covered by this bill and therefore is unregulated and therefore dangerous? Did I understand that correctly?

Mr. Chapman: Yes. I'm stating that there is no specific clause in the bill that provides for an offence and a penalty for a person who releases negligently a radioactivity into the natural environment.

The Chairman: Okay. You're educating me here, because I'm under a different impression. Maybe you can help me out on this, because if I read the bill, paragraph 26(a) basically says,

26. Subject to the regulations, no person shall, except in accordance with a licence,

(a) possess...a nuclear substance.

Mr. Chapman: That's correct.

The Chairman: So you have to have a licence. Now, by Order in Council with regulations, if you operate without that licence, or you operate with a licence without being in accordance with the regulations attached to that licence, you're subject to being charged.

Mr. Chapman: But there is no specific offence for releasing radioactivity. You could be charged with not complying with your licence.

The Chairman: Or you can be charged with possession.

Mr. Chapman. Yes.

The Chairman: You're not suggesting that the tools aren't there; you're just suggesting they're not strong enough, in your opinion. Is that what you're saying?

Mr. Chapman: No, I'm saying there should be a specific clause for the negligent release of radioactive material into the environment - not whether or not you're a licensee, but any person. It's an offence to be in possession of it without a licence. That's one thing....

Suppose he stole it but didn't release any of it? Surely the penalty against that person would be different from the penalty against the person who stole it and then let it go. There has to be a clause in this bill that makes it an offence to spread radioactivity into the natural environment, no matter who you are.

The Chairman: I guess this is what I'm missing. If you're going to be in possession of it, you're operating under a licence, and the stipulation of the licence is that you're not going to be able to release that into the environment, and therefore if you do that you're going to be charged, or you're going to hold the stuff illegally, in which case you're going to be charged for illegally holding it.

Mr. Chapman: But as I said before, it's one thing to be charged with possession of something illegal, and it's another thing to be charged with an offence involving the releasing of that material that may kill thousands of people. There should be a specific offence. There is in every other piece of environmental legislation in Canada. It shouldn't matter whether you're licensed or not.

The Chairman: Okay. I understand the point you're making.

I had a second question here. I think both Dr. Edwards and you, Mr. Chapman, talked about the Elliot Lake mine. Did I understand you correctly to say that all the mines in Elliot Lake today are orphaned, and that there is total responsibility to the federal government?

Mr. Chapman: No.

The Chairman: Okay. Maybe you could clarify that.

Mr. Chapman: All I'm saying is that there has been an agreement entered into between the Canadian government and the Ontario government that down the road, depending on the circumstances, those two governments accept the responsibility, and I'm saying that's wrong.

The Chairman: Okay. Let me understand this. You're saying it's wrong that we let it get that way, but now that it is that way, I think you'd certainly agree that we have to deal with it.

Mr. Chapman: I agree it's a problem that has to be dealt with, and so in a way I'm agreeing with you, sir. We have this terrible problem that has been described as an environmental hazard in perpetuity. I agree that it has to be dealt with.

The Chairman: One of the companies up there, I believe you mentioned, is Rio Algom. Are they picking up any of the cost of this or did they just walk away from it?

Mr. Chapman: No, they are picking up some of their costs. Denison, my understanding is, is shaky financially and they're not certain how much of their costs are going to be covered.

.1315

I guess the point is if you're going to operate in an industry like that - and to a certain extent this bill provides for it - there should be money put up front to cover the cost of these possibilities arising.

The Chairman: Which this bill calls for. But Mr. Edwards is suggesting it's calling for it but it can't do it accurately, because it's unknown what the cost would be.

Mr. Edwards: Yes. Again, this is part of the problem in dealing with it on a piecemeal licensing basis rather than as a holistic problem.

First of all, to clarify the situation at Elliot Lake and elsewhere in Canada - for example, Bancroft - there are uranium tailings, which are radioactive materials, that have been abandoned. They are orphans. Some of the tailings at Elliot Lake do fall into that category; these are orphans. Some of them do not.

The ones we're talking about with regard to Rio Algom and Denison are ones for which they accept responsibility, but in actual fact there's no way they can take on the financial obligation of paying for this thing in perpetuity.

The government is right now considering the possibility of just letting them flood these tailings with water, after putting in some strengthening dykes and so on, and basically walking away from it after a period of monitoring. From then on it becomes a liability for the Canadian taxpayer in perpetuity.

The thing is, these things can be very expensive, because if after a period of decades you have massive collapses of these dykes and dams, then you could have large spills of radioactive materials. It could be very costly. That's going to be on the shoulders of the taxpayer.

The problem, in my view, is that the Ministry of Natural Resources has never seen fit to, say, tax new mines. There are new mines going into operation today in Canada. They're not trying to tax some of the new mining operations to try to cover some of these costs from the past.

For instance, in the United States, when Three Mile Island had that dreadful accident, General Public Utilities was totally unable to pay the $2 billion plus cost of clean-up. They developed a system whereby all the utilities that had nuclear reactors around North America each paid a share of the cost of that clean-up.

There has been no such initiative in Canada, and this is where I feel we have to get some minister behind the Nuclear Safety Commission, which has a desire to push these issues and see them through in a comprehensive way. The tailings question is an example.

Here's one more thought on that question, if you don't mind. If we had really come to deal with these abandoned tailings prior to now, maybe our licensing arrangements would be different. Perhaps we wouldn't be licensing mines in the way we are if we had dealt with this problem earlier. In fact we might have developed milling technologies that would have reduced the problem considerably.

The Chairman: I have just one last question and then we'll adjourn the meeting.

Both of you, Dr. Edwards and Mr. Chapman, have expressed a concern about the fact that it's in with Natural Resources and not with Environment. Am I incorrect in my assumption that there are triggers within the environmental act now so that if somebody were attempting to open a new uranium mine in Canada or making a proposal for a brand-new reactor, there would automatically be a trigger so the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act would apply and an assessment would take place?

Mr. Chapman: I have not seen the proposed legislation with respect to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act as it relates to this bill.

The Chairman: My understanding is there is a trigger mechanism that would cause an environmental assessment.

Mr. Edwards: There have been environmental assessments recently in Saskatchewan, for example, having to do with new uranium mines, in which the panels have made quite strong negative recommendations regarding some mining developments and have simply been ignored by the governments concerned, because of course they're not under any obligation to follow the advice of these panels. So although you have an environmental hearing, that hearing has in fact no force of law.

I think under the new bill this will be different. Will it, or will it still be advisory?

A voice: It will still be advisory.

.1320

Mr. Edwards: So it's still advisory. It's still discretionary. It means the role of the Minister of the Environment is extremely limited. Basically, the role of the Minister of the Environment is simply to conduct a hearing, to try to provide good advice, and that's it. What happens after that is totally up to other agencies.

The Chairman: But in reality what you're recommending - and we can argue about whether or not it's strong enough - is that the environmental issue should be dealt with by the Minister of the Environment as opposed to the Minister of Natural Resources, and if that happens, under present legislation it will be the Minister of the Environment who will be involved if somebody is trying to get a new nuclear plant or nuclear mine established in Canada.

We can debate whether that minister is given enough power in respect of that - that's a debate for some other time - but your concern, which is to get it out of Natural Resources Canada or have the Minister of the Environment more involved in it, actually takes place because of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

But that's for another debate. I have to call it, because it is 1:20 p.m. and we do need to go out.

I see three hands. I'll give Mr. Edwards and Mr. Chapman one minute, and then I will have to adjourn the meeting.

Mr. Edwards: I don't agree with your interpretation. The bill calls for the Nuclear Safety Commission. It does not empower them to have environmental hearings, but it does empower them to set environmental regulations and standards, which in fact impinges upon the mandate of the Minister of the Environment.

Also, by not having the safety commission operating within the Department of the Environment, you don't have the opportunity to develop a real expertise on nuclear issues within the Department of the Environment. So yes, they can hold hearings, but they have no real core group of expert people.

The Chairman: It's not that they can, it's that there has to be. I wish to make that point clear.

Mr. Chapman.

Mr. Chapman: I didn't have time in my submission, so I'll just be 30 seconds.

I think the bill is sorely lacking in the powers it gives to the inspectors. I put that in my written submission. The only way an inspector can get into a premises where he does not have consent, as it stands now, is with a search warrant. The only way he can get a search warrant is if he has reasonable and probably grounds to believe that a crime has been committed. They need a provision for what is called a judicial order for inspections. It's key to all environmental enforcement.

The Chairman: Do you have that in your written brief, which we will be considering?

Mr. Chapman: Yes, I do.

The Chairman: I'd like to thank all of the groups that are here today. You've provided a different perspective from what we've heard from other people. As you can tell from the questioning, they are concerns or issues the committee members were anxious to hear about and are anxious to consider as part of their deliberations.

So I appreciate your taking the time and energy to be here today to provide that testimony, in addition to your written briefs, which will be considered as this committee does its deliberation on Bill C-23.

We stand adjourned.

Return to Committee Home Page