FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 19, 1998

• 1025

[English]

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, Lib.)): Colleagues, perhaps we could begin.

A few members have been called out to another committee to vote. I wish to tell the witnesses that in the House now, with the closeness of the House and the numbers of committees, fairly often people are pulled out of one committee to go to another committee to vote because of the nature of it. Their jackets are here, so I'm sure they will be back at some point, but because of our time lines we should begin.

I welcome our witnesses on our study of nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. We have, as an individual, Franklyn Griffiths; from the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, Kristen Ostling; from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Gordon Edwards; and from the Nuclear Awareness Project, Irene Kock. Welcome.

Ms. Kristen Ostling (National Coordinator, Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout): Mr. Chairman, we'd like to change the order slightly, if that's possible.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Sure.

Ms. Kristen Ostling: Maybe Gordon Edwards could be first and then myself, Kristen Ostling, then Irene Kock and then Professor Griffiths at the end. Thank you.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): If that's agreeable, Mr. Edwards can start, please. Generally, in the past we've asked people to give about a 10-minute statement. If it has been handed out, we would appreciate it if you don't read it. We have time later to read it so we prefer you to summarize it, which will leave more time for questions and answers. We find it a lot more useful that way.

Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Gordon Edwards (Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I'm very glad the committee is having these hearings and I'm very glad the minister has asked the committee to look into Canada's non-proliferation disarmament policies. Unfortunately, I feel there has been far too little public involvement, public discussion, public debate, public education on these very important issues in which Canada plays a very important role.

In particular, as a Canadian citizen I am absolutely dismayed that there has been no open political process whatsoever regarding this MOX proposal. In fact, people in other countries are equally dismayed. For instance, even with this test burn that is coming up supposedly this spring, in the United States the U.S. Department of Energy at Los Alamos saw fit to prepare an environmental impact statement; to notify the communities along the route; to invite public comment from both Americans and Canadians, and to undertake a public process. Here in Canada, none!

I think there is something very rotten in the way in which Canada's nuclear policies have been run for many decades, and basically it is the lack of any open democratic process. The problem is that the advice to the government seems to come from the same people year after year, namely, the people in the nuclear industry.

I was interested to hear the response of man from NRCan, Mr. Brown, that because messes were made, radioactive sites were created, therefore there had been an office of low-level radioactive waste established. And who runs the office? It is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The problem with Canada's nuclear policy is that our nuclear technicians, who have a vested interest in keeping their jobs going, are writing Canada's policy, and there's no public process by which any outside points of view can be heard.

This is particularly serious when it comes to the MOX initiative, because the implications are not just Canadian but global.

• 1030

The message given up front is that the purpose of this proposal, this MOX initiative, is to eliminate or make unusable the plutonium taken out of warheads. These words are incorrect. We do not know any method for eliminating the plutonium taken out of the warheads. There is no method known for doing this. Running it through a CANDU reactor or any other kind of reactor does not eliminate the plutonium. What it does is reduce it somewhat, by a factor of about one-third in total, and it mixes it with other highly radioactive materials, which makes it harder to get at for at least a couple of hundred years. That does not eliminate it. Plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years. That means you have to wait 240,000 years before it has been reduced by a factor of 1,000.

I would like to take just a few minutes—and I'm sorry the other members of the committee are not here—to put this into a bit of historical context. I've given you some exhibits. In front of you is a sheet called “Thoughts on Plutonium”. These are direct quotations from U.S. government documents.

The first quotation comes from the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal report, after the existence of the atomic bomb became public and the question of how to control this powerful force was being discussed at the United Nations. The Acheson-Lilienthal report concluded unanimously that there was no way you were going to prevent proliferation just by methods of inspection and policing, which are exactly the methods we are being told are so effective, the so-called safeguards.

We all know by common sense that auditing books does not prevent theft; what it does is detect theft after the theft has occurred. We do not have any systems in place to absolutely prevent the theft of money, the theft of diamonds, the theft of heroin, the theft of gold, the theft of anything you care to mention. To say that these inspections are going to prevent the diversion of plutonium is self-deception.

The fact of the matter is—and when Trudeau was Prime Minister he made this quite clear—that ultimately these safeguards rest on one thing only, and that is good faith, the good faith of the people who give their word. You heard yourself that Iraq didn't keep its word. Well, neither did North Korea, neither did India, and I suppose in the future neither will other countries.

We've heard that bilateral binding agreements are signed. How long are these agreements going to last? How long are the regimes that signed these agreements going to last—24,000 years? Are we to believe that some future regime that perhaps takes over a country by force and executes the previous leaders is going to respect an agreement that was signed by the previous regime?

We are talking about something very serious here. The fact of the matter is that plutonium is a man-made material. It's a human-made material. The amount of plutonium required to make a bomb is approximately the size of a grapefruit. This is a glass paperweight that was fabricated to be exactly the size of the core of the Nagasaki bomb—just a few kilograms.

Read the literature on the subject. I've given you various excerpts on this matter. The second excerpt on the one-page handout is a quotation from Victor Gilinsky, one of the five nuclear commissioners of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission back in 1976. Of course that was shortly after the Indian explosion, where India produced plutonium in a Canadian research reactor and used it to detonate its own bomb.

It says we are approaching a position where, without breaking any agreements, a country can separate plutonium, stockpile plutonium, and somewhere else in the country produce the mechanisms that would be required to turn it into a bomb. All of this can be done without breaking any agreements whatsoever. You don't even have to lie about it; you just have to not admit it openly. You're not breaking any agreements if you do that. Then you can simply bring the plutonium together with the other devices and make your bombs within a very short time, by stockpiling the materials and the explosive containers.

We are facing in the world today a situation where all of the plutonium is man-made. We know mostly where it is, although we don't know where all of it is. It has been produced in civilian reactors and in military reactors, and it has been separated from radioactive waste to a small degree.

• 1035

About 20% of the total of all the plutonium in the world has been separated. That means it has been removed from that highly radioactive junk that is in the spent fuels, the spent radioactive waste fuel. Once it has been separated, unfortunately it can be fairly easily stolen and transported and it can also be fairly easily turned into weapons.

Is Canada against plutonium? No.

Is Canada calling for the elimination of plutonium worldwide? No.

Is the Canadian government in favour of halting the production of plutonium all over the world? No.

Canada in fact even explicitly reserves the option to separate plutonium here in Canada as well. If you look at the environmental impact statement Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. produced for its waste disposal, in the very first paragraph, in fact, they make it clear that the waste they bury in Canadian granite, if they get permission to do so, could be the spent fuel from the reactors or it could be the waste that's left over after the plutonium has been separated.

So the fact is that the Canadian government is not against plutonium. The Canadian government sees an opportunity to prop up its nuclear industry and, by the way, to follow the lead of the nuclear industry, as always. It was Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Ontario Hydro that conceived this plan. They have been pursuing this plan for over four years. They have gone to the Government of Canada and I'm sure have advised the Government of Canada not to have public hearings, because that will just stir up misunderstandings, and simply to go ahead with this.

What does it mean for the nuclear industry of Canada? Well, it's a guarantee that their reactors, which are suffering badly, as you know.... Just yesterday there was a $6.6 billion write-down of Ontario Hydro. The very reactors they want to burn the plutonium in are among the seven that are being shut down. What does it mean for them? It means a guarantee that for 25 more years those reactors would have to be kept running, come hell or high water. No matter how much it costs and no matter who pays the bill, those reactors would have to be run for another 25 years. Otherwise this MOX initiative makes no sense at all.

In the meantime, what would we be doing worldwide on the global scheme? Would we then, at the end of those 25 years, have a safer world? Would we have reduced the threat from plutonium that could be diverted for bombs? On the contrary, if things proceed as they are proceeding today....

Right now the amount of civilian separated plutonium is approximately equal to the amount of military separated plutonium. But the amount of civilian separated plutonium is going much faster. Japan is producing it. France is producing it. Russia is producing it. India is producing it. Various countries are producing it. And these countries are producing it because they want to get into the business of using plutonium regularly as a fuel.

What we're talking about, committee members, is not eliminating plutonium. That's not the idea. The idea, on the contrary, is to institutionalize the use of plutonium worldwide. Now, that may not be the Canadian government's motive, but it certainly is high on the agenda of the nuclear industry globally. I'm sure that's not the reason the Canadian nuclear industry is putting first and foremost to the Government of Canada, but it is what I believe is driving this scheme in fact.

The question comes up, of course, if we do not proceed with this MOX initiative, what are the alternatives? The alternative I would like to see is that our government would come out against the separation of plutonium for any purposes worldwide. Just as we took a leadership role in bringing about the elimination of landmines, or at least the agreement to eliminate landmines—it will be a long time before they are eliminated, of course—I think Canada could play a real leadership role in bringing about an end to the separation of plutonium; a strategy, by the way, that was suggested at the United Nations in 1978 by Pierre Elliott Trudeau. That was his so-called “strategy of suffocation”. It made good sense then, and it makes very good sense now. It makes even better sense now.

What I would like to see with the plutonium that has been taken out of warheads is that it be made just as unusable for weapons as it would be if it went through a CANDU reactor. How do you do that? It's quite simple. You mix those highly radioactive materials, which are sitting around in tanks—there are millions of gallons of them—with the plutonium and you make it just as difficult to separate the plutonium as if you had put it through a CANDU reactor. This is called “immobilisation”.

• 1040

There is, however, an extra advantage to this type of immobilisation. Once the plutonium has been contaminated with radioactive materials, those radioactive materials have a much shorter half-life than the plutonium. So if you wait a couple of hundred years, they're mostly gone. Not all of them are gone, but it becomes increasingly easy to get the plutonium back out again.

This is true of both spent fuel and immobilisation. If you run weapons plutonium through a CANDU reactor. as time goes on, after it comes out the other end, it will get more and more accessible with each successive century following that. So you haven't really solved the problem; you've bought some time.

Buying time is not a bad idea, but you can buy it a lot cheaper and a lot more sensibly and without running the risk of stimulating a global MOX or plutonium economy by simply mixing it and immobilising it.

There's a specific advantage to the immobilisation—the vitrification option. The advantage is that after 100 years or so, you can re-melt the glass, add more radioactive junk, and then re-solidify it so that you can keep it hot. You can't do that with spent fuel.

So in fact the immobilisation option offers the permanence that the reactor MOX option does not offer.

Thank you.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

Ms. Ostling.

Ms. Kristen Ostling: Good morning. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about Canada's nuclear policy and how it affects proliferation.

The fundamental problem with Canada's nuclear non-proliferation policy is that it fundamentally does not work. Over the past 50 years, Canada's role as an honest broker in efforts aimed at nuclear disarmament have been continually compromised in efforts to promote civilian nuclear programs at home and abroad.

Federal and provincial efforts to market CANDU reactors and uranium under the guise of the peaceful atom actually contribute to the reduction in global security. The immediate risks, for example, are apparent in the way that weapons of mass destruction can be made from Canadian uranium and the fact that there are inherent environmental and proliferation hazards associated with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons waste.

What we need to have in Canada is an open and independent evaluation of industry practices and its impact on non-proliferation. This is yet to be initiated by the Government of Canada.

By continuing to support an unsustainable industry, the Government of Canada has placed our environment and our security at risk. Successive governments have continued to unconditionally support the objectives of the Canadian nuclear industry and have failed to hold crown agencies and other parts of the industry publicly accountable. This is exemplified by our continued commitment to uranium exports, CANDU reactor exports, and weapons plutonium imports.

I want to briefly touch on the first two issues, how Canada contributes to proliferation through uranium exports and CANDU reactor exports, but focus mostly on the question of weapons plutonium imports.

As you can see from the map that has been distributed, a nuclear map of Canada, the beginning of the nuclear fuel chain starts with uranium. Uranium has only two principal uses—nuclear bombs and nuclear electricity generation.

Canadian know-how in uranium basically has helped fuel the arms race historically and has continued to help to fuel the arms race despite the non-proliferation treaty and despite Canada's nuclear cooperation agreement. This point was emphasized in an October 1993 report by the joint federal-provincial panel on uranium mining developments in northern Saskatchewan. They noted that there's no proven method for preventing the incorporation of Canadian uranium into military applications.

In terms of proliferation risks related to CANDU exports, it's important to emphasize that every CANDU reactor produces plutonium that can be used for nuclear bombs at any time in the next 20,000 years. In other words, long after the reactor that produced it has been shut down, decommissioned and forgotten, and long after the regime that signed the nuclear cooperation agreement has been consigned to the history books, the plutonium will still be available for weapons use.

• 1045

Despite Canadian and international non-proliferation agreement, CANDU sales carry an inherent risk of proliferation. Purchasers can simply ignore their commitments, as India did. All of Canada's past and present CANDU customers, including China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Romania, Argentina and South Korea, have at one time or another pursued nuclear weapons programs.

I'd like to turn now to the question of plutonium fuel imports and how they're a threat to Canada's nuclear non-proliferation policy. The federal government, without any real public or parliamentary debate, has agreed in principle to allow the importation of plutonium fuel into Canada. The government and the Canadian nuclear industry have portrayed the proposal as a swords-into-ploughshares initiative which will make productive use of dismantled weapons. In other words, we're going to use the excess plutonium to light our homes and keep our TV sets going.

However, the government has failed to commit to a full public policy review or to undertaking a comprehensive environmental assessment before a final decision to proceed with the proposal. The swords-into-ploughshares rationale for pursuing the plutonium import scheme can be viewed as mere camouflage. The global nuclear industry is in decline, and Ontario Hydro is no exception.

They're using the swords-into-ploughshares argument mostly as a marketing tool in an effort to revive Canada's scandal-plagued and debt-burdened industry as well as to provide a rationale to refurbish Ontario Hydro's ailing reactors. Evidence of this underlying motivation—in other words, basically the survival motivation of the nuclear industry—can be seen in the fact that the weakest North American utilities are the ones pushing the hardest for the plutonium fuel initiative.

For example, in the United States, Commonwealth Edison, a U.S. electric utility with 6 of its 12 reactors on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's watch list because of their dismal safety record, is heading up to lead their consortium for MOX use in the United States. Similarly, in Canada we have 7 of Ontario Hydro's reactors slated for shutdown due to safety problems.

Ontario Hydro sees the plutonium fuel initiative as a way of refurbishing reactors, at the Bruce plant in particular. These refurbishing costs and repairs will likely be $1 billion or more, so this is a way to keep these reactors going. If the federal government enters into this agreement to accept weapons-grade plutonium fuel, it's going to commit Canada to operating these specifically modified reactors for at least a quarter of a century, regardless of the cost, maintenance, safety or operational problems involved.

The recent Ontario Hydro scandal has raised questions about both the safety of CANDU reactors and the credibility of the Canadian nuclear industry. Given the sub-standard state of affairs at Ontario Hydro, we need to ask how the federal government and, by extension, the people of Canada can put any confidence in the nuclear industry's capability to implement a plutonium program of this nature, given the self-acknowledged managerial incompetence and design and safety problems inherent in Canada's aging nuclear infrastructure.

One of the major problems in terms of proliferation or trying to ensure non-proliferation with the plutonium fuel initiative is that it breaks down even further the distinction between the world's civil and military nuclear programs.

The Rand Corporation, a think-tank based in Washington, D.C., has stated that it's critical that countries pay attention to the proliferation threat from the civilian side if they want to maximize the non-proliferation value of dismantling U.S. nuclear weapons and those of the former Soviet republics. If countries ignore the civilian threat, they compound the problem by making wrong choices now in how to deal with military materials.

• 1050

If the next phase of this project goes forward, weapons plutonium may be transported into Canada for a test in the Chalk River laboratories this spring. The test will serve as a first step before approval is given for future large-scale plutonium shipments.

Howard Canter, the acting director of the U.S. DOE's Office of Fissile Materials, has confirmed that the first shipment of U.S. weapons plutonium will proceed sometime in March or April 1998. The shipment has been delayed several times, in some cases because of opposition in the United States, but its most recent delay is in response to issues raised by the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout and other Canadian groups that made submissions to the DOE on their draft environmental assessment.

A number of submissions to the U.S. Department of Energy cited the lack of environmental assessment in Canada and transboundary effects—in other words, impacts on one country that result from events in another. U.S. officials found the provisions of the American legislation governing the transboundary effects and the transport of nuclear materials were not accounted for in the draft EA, so the U.S. DOE, the Department of Justice, and the Council on Environmental Quality are revising the environmental assessment.

What is very striking is that to date there has been no equivalent assessment in Canada. So Canadians have had more of an impact on foreign policy through their interventions in the United States than we have been able to have here.

It's scandalous that there's been no environmental assessment on this issue in Canada. If there is one in the United States, there should at least be an environmental assessment in Canada. But more important, we should be reviewing this as a policy direction for Canada.

Canadians have the right to decide whether they want to embark on this program, which is going to take us into a whole new ball game in terms of nuclear proliferation issues. It's going to cement the nuclear industry for at least the next 25 years and longer, and it's going to stimulate a global plutonium economy.

We agree with the position that's been raised by Franklyn Griffiths and other Canadians on this issue, that the test burn and its successive stages should not proceed.

It's noteworthy that even Ontario Hydro's enthusiasm for this project is waning. They have stated that they're not optimistic about the possibility of getting this contract, and yet we're still planning on going ahead with the test burn.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Could you wrap up?

Ms. Kristen Ostling: Yes, I'm going to right now.

The federal government has stated that any environmental assessment of the plutonium import plan would be several years away. However, this would be too little too late, and it does not address the fundamental question of whether or not Canadians want to embark on this process.

Our number one recommendation would be that Canada strengthen its nuclear non-proliferation policy and cancel the spring test burn at Chalk River nuclear laboratories.

You can also read in our report our other recommendations.

Thank you very much.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you.

I just want to bring a point to your attention. I guess you were here, but the witnesses before us left us a document that outlines our regulations concerning the MOX test. It says here:

Such a project would be subject to the full assessment and licensing approvals of relevant federal and provincial safety, health and environmental regulatory authorities. The various approvals processes would include a full scale environmental assessment of the proposal as well as provisions for public input.

Ms. Irene Kock (Spokesperson, Nuclear Awareness Project): I'll be addressing that.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Okay, because I guess they are claiming they're going to do it in the future.

Ms. Kock.

Ms. Irene Kock: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to address you today.

I want to begin by indicating that our group endorses the submissions from Gordon Edwards and Kristen Ostling on behalf of the organizations they're representing.

Our own organization has been involved in disarmament issues as well as nuclear power issues, and that's because we believe fundamentally that we cannot unlink the so-called “peaceful atom” from nuclear bombs. Because of that belief, the foundation of our organization, Nuclear Awareness Project, is our activities on both of those fronts.

• 1055

We believe Canada's position vis-à-vis non-proliferation should be support for a global ban on plutonium production, as outlined by Dr. Edwards. Also, we believe there should be an end to the export of uranium reactors and nuclear technology to countries that are known proliferators. I want to draw your attention to one particular situation that concerns us very much right now. It's the erosion of our non-proliferation policy through trade in nuclear technology with India and Pakistan, which is going on right now through the CANDU owners group. This has been going on very quietly since 1989.

We do not even have a nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan, to the best of my knowledge. This is outlined in a document Kristen has supplied to the committee. I will follow this up with a letter and give you the details and the referenced information about this situation.

We believe this assistance to India and Pakistan is a violation of our non-proliferation policy. What they are doing is helping them to upgrade CANDU-type reactors that were built in those countries.

I would like to move on to focus quickly on three particular issues. One is the International Atomic Energy Agency. This, as you know, is a UN agency. It has a dual mandate of promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear technology and running our safeguarding regime internationally.

We have great concerns about this schizophrenic role. We believe it's fundamentally a problem that the IAEA is trying to run in both directions at the same time. We think the IAEA should be reformed, and I would urge you to advise the Canadian government that we push for those reforms to make the IAEA strictly a safeguarding organization and to work to strengthen those mechanisms and to split or stop entirely the UN promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear power. Our group's position is that, if anything, the UN should be working more aggressively to promote sustainable energy futures, which in our view do not include the use of the atom.

I wanted to touch on the question of the long-term security of spent fuel. Again, this is a global issue. What we have right now is a situation.... When spent fuel is removed from reactors, as you know, it's extremely hazardous. This is what is called a “radiological barrier”. It's the hazard from all the fission products in the fuel. This radiological barrier decays over time, as Gordon indicated, but what remains is the plutonium, which becomes more and more accessible.

The Canadian proposal put forward by AECL right now is for burial of our spent fuel in the Canadian Shield. A very interesting discussion was had at the federal environment assessment hearings on one particular point. This case they put forward includes a proposal to map and indicate very clearly the location and contents of our future nuclear fuel repository.

The dilemma comes about when you try to understand how we are going to label this site to prevent future generations from inadvertently entering the site and becoming contaminated from this hazard. How do you mark the site on the one hand, but hide the site on the other, from would-be nuclear warmongers, who in fact would have very easy access to a plutonium stockpile if they did come to this point in time?

This is a big dilemma for every country trying to deal with spent fuel disposal or burial. Gordon dealt with that, so I'm going to move on from that topic.

It was quite a shock to the panel considering nuclear fuel waste disposal. It also has grave implications for the proposal to import plutonium, because the spent fuel from this process of using the MOX fuel in Ontario reactors means the spent fuel stays in Canada. So under the current proposal for burial, essentially we can't guarantee that the plutonium won't become accessible in the future.

My final issue is specifically on the MOX fuel proposal. I wanted to highlight for you the problems of secrecy around this proposal. I'm very concerned about this even now.

• 1100

Our organization found out about this situation in 1994. I began to work to get information about the proposal. I in fact had to get the key document produced by AECL and Ontario Hydro through the U.S. Department of Energy. It took almost a year and a half to do so.

I finally received it and went through it in 1997. I was very concerned about this. This is the technical feasibility study for the import of American plutonium fuel.

There was a similar study, we heard this morning, paid for by CIDA, on the feasibility of the Russian side. Now, you will be interested to know that I've been trying to obtain that document. We currently have an appeal with Canada's information commissioner, because CIDA has refused to release that report to us. It was paid for by CIDA, the research was done by AECL and Ontario Hydro, and now I find out it's a 1.6-million document. It is the equivalent report to this one.

I certainly hope it won't take me another year to get that. I think this committee should insist on the release of the CIDA-funded report on the feasibility of importing Russian plutonium fuel.

My final point is on this notion that we will have a full review of this proposal under existing environmental assessment legislation and that the AECB will be reviewing this under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

I have looked into this very carefully. We have seen major proposals slide through regulatory regimes and be approved with no review, and I'm very fearful that the same thing is going to happen here. I'll tell you why.

Under existing and future AECB rules—there is no question about this—the AECB can in fact approve and license a utility in Canada to use plutonium oxide fuel by simply amending the type of fuel listed in the licence. There is no requirement for a full environmental assessment.

I'm fearful that we will never get one, that we will never be able to deal with all of the outstanding issues we've identified through reviewing this technical report, which includes all the transportation risks, all of the socioeconomic risks, and the extra costs to Canada for safeguarding this material. The plutonium MOX fuel is a “safeguardable” substance.

So I hope you understand that there is no guarantee that we will have that full assessment. It's as simple as the AECB changing the fuel in the licence. That's all we'll get.

Under provincial laws, you will be interested to know that the Bruce nuclear power development, where Ontario Hydro is planning to do this, received a full, complete, total exemption from provincial environmental assessments when it was approved. So there are no grounds provincially for us to ever have a review.

I will finish my comments there. Thank you for your attention.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you, Ms. Kock.

Mr. Griffiths.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths (Individual Presentation): Thank you for the invitation, all of you. I'm pleased to be here.

In one way or another, I would like to say, I have been analysing and studying international security affairs, including nuclear, for nearly 40 years now. In fact, that's much longer than I care to admit.

Beginning in 1960, when I began to work on Russian disarmament policy, including nuclear, I've been concerned with these matters. Recently I was appointed to a position at the University of Toronto, the George Ignatieff Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies. This was in May, just after the Prime Minister had said at the Moscow nuclear summit that Canada should acknowledge its responsibility and think seriously about what we now call the MOX initiative, or the plutonium fuel initiative.

I, having at that time just been appointed to a chair, was thinking about ways of honouring the chair. One of them, it seemed to me, was to have a look at this proposal. At that time, in May 1996, I would say I was detached and open-minded about it. I was probably like most of you are, trying to figure out what this thing was all about.

On the surface, indeed, you could say, well, not a bad idea; there is a lot of weapons plutonium out there, and surely something has to be done with it. You could say on the surface that to convert it into electricity here in Canada and to get it out of the hands of those who might use it once again for weapons purposes would be a great thing. On the surface there were advantages, it seemed to me, and yet I sensed this thing was not all that it appeared to be.

• 1105

As a result, I organized and hosted a stakeholders' retreat on the MOX initiative, which was held outside Toronto in October 1996, to which all of the main players came: Ontario Hydro, AECL, Foreign Affairs, Natural Resources Canada, the nuclear and environmental watchdog groups, and some others. This was, I can say, a very informative and educating meeting.

It was, you might say, a stand-off. There was very little common ground. As it was discussed amongst people who had a direct interest in it, this was an issue on which there was no middle, it seemed to me. This was an issue of yes or no, and I think that's probably the way it is today, in my view—either one or the other. This is not a problem area in which you can somehow cut off a bit here and add a bit there, please everyone and do the right thing. This is an issue of a yes or a no.

As I got into it after the meeting, thinking further, I decided I would do a study to figure it out for myself, and I did do a study. I have a copy here with me. I'm really not going to talk much beyond saying to you that I hope, if you are interested in this proposal in its detail, you take the trouble to at least scan this report, which is called MOX Experience: The Disposition of Excess Russian and U.S. Weapons Plutonium in Canada.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): We have copies of that.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: I know it is painful to read.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Well, there's a two-page brief, though.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: The two pages are one thing, but this is 30,000 words, and I have to tell you, there's no way to get into this except to grit your teeth. It's not my thing only. To get into this problem, there is a technicality level that is difficult.

Once upon a time, Canada made a big mistake with India when we assisted them in what turned out to be the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. That was an extremely technical question, which some people were studying I'm sure, and all kinds of assurances were made that this was a reasonable assistance that we extended to India, leading up to 1974 and their detonation.

We made a mistake then, and we made a mistake partly because we did not take the trouble to actually bear down on and figure out some of the details of what we were doing. I think we risk this again.

The report I came out with is decidedly nyet, nay, against this proposal, and it suggests a whole variety of reasons that the Government of Canada should withdraw forthwith its informal support and backing for this initiative.

The initiative is wrong-headed. It does not produce the benefits that are claimed for it in terms of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. I'd be happy to go into some of these for you. In fact, in some respects it is counterproductive and actually promises to make things worse if implemented in its present from.

At the same time, this proposal promises to deliver direct costs to Canadians in the areas of safety, security, financial cost, and also governance.

On the governance costs, I take these seriously. These have to do with the integrity of the Canadian environmental and regulatory process, which is going to be very severely strained if this proposal goes through and we have actually to conduct an assessment on what will be indeed an utterly unique international security proposition for which there is no assessment procedure in existence. There's nothing set up to deal with this. We'll have to create a new one from scratch. You could say that would be a good opportunity, perhaps. I'm not sure we're up to it.

In any case, I come down against this proposal firmly and say it should be withdrawn forthwith. If nevertheless a government of the day is determined to persist with it, in this report of mine I suggest 21 corrections or changes that could be applied to improve this proposal. It's all laid out in detail, and I will say no more.

• 1110

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you, Dr. Griffiths.

Colleagues, we have 20 minutes for five-minute rounds. We have to be out of here at 11.30 a.m. I have one quick question before we begin.

Last week one of our presenters, Tariq Rauf, whom you're probably familiar with, said in his statement, and I'll quote:

Long-term monitored storage is another alternative option for plutonium, but given the continuing collapse of the nuclear infrastructure in Russia and the leakage of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union, reactor burn-up is increasingly becoming the viable and desired option.

Maybe, Mr. Griffiths, if....

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: It's not a desirable option. A reactor disposition, if we're going to call it that, to be done in Russia—let's talk about Russia, because on the whole, the Americans can handle themselves and their needs—is going to take some time.

Indeed, my estimate is that if we were to take plutonium from Russia and the U.S., the first of it would really start to move to Canada only around 2010. There is an immense lead time; there are all kinds of regulatory requirements, not only in this country but elsewhere; there's production, and so on, all of which, in the case of the United States, could be challenged in court and held up.

The thought, then, as I see it, is of Canada proposing to deal with nuclear proliferation threats that come from the potential for leakage from Russia today by a proposal that is only going to start moving the material out of Russia in 2010. Between now and 2010, the CANDU MOX initiative promises to do zip for what is basically a materials accounting and control problem within Russia. The more, however, we address ourselves—and the Americans are doing this, and I believe we should do this today—to the materials accounting control problem in Russia today, the more we strengthen their custodial capability, the less the proliferation need to start in on MOX burning in 2010.

In other words, if we're going to do the right thing and make a real effort at this, which is helping the Russians to control their own materials now, we are going to undermine and subvert the very argument, which is that there is Russian leakage and that we should be ready in 2010, and then maybe for 20 years thereafter, to slowly draw down this material that the Russians are supposedly going to be leaking all the time.

This is inept. It's silly. It's not a proper solution to the problem, which again is a materials control solution.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you.

Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, I highly appreciate the quality of the presentation, and I really enjoyed it. Thank you for that presentation.

In the 1986 Chernobyl accident, who suffered the most? It's the people who suffered the most, not the governments, not any organizations or whatever. So when we talk about what we are talking about today—and we have been in fact talking about it for the last few days in the committee—it has long-term implications. Something may happen or something may not happen in our lifespan, but what we are talking about is the planning for the generations to come.

There are many issues at stake: security, safety, pollution, environment, and so on. My concern is about public education at this time. Is the public fully aware of what we are doing? What are the implications of these plans? Maybe the question should not be directed to you, because it is a comprehensive question to be answered by various elements who appear before this committee, but maybe you can take your share to answer this question.

Public education is one. I don't know what the level of public education is at this time.

My second question is about public consultation, whether the public is consulted enough on this issue. Does the public have a voice on this issue? Is the public completely mute and unaware of what's been happening? Have you conducted any survey or any research on this to measure that level?

• 1115

Mr. Gordon Edwards: I would like to say something along those lines.

I believe this committee, for example, could do a great service by recommending, if not the scrapping of the whole initiative, at least postponing indefinitely this test burn until there has been such an educational process as you have described. I believe in a country such as Canada, dealing with an issue of this nature and of this magnitude, not to have an open, public, democratic process to discuss and educate people on what is involved is unforgivable.

I was one of the participants in the workshop Professor Griffiths organized, and we had representatives there from both the federal and the provincial environmental assessment agencies. They both said there is no way their agencies, respectively the federal and the provincial, are in any way equipped to deal with this kind of problem under the guise of an environmental assessment. When you're dealing with an environmental assessment, you're not talking about the policy question. So the policy question in fact never gets discussed.

That is a fundamental flaw in talking about environmental assessment. Not only are they not equipped to do it, they are not even mandated to do it.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Do you have any survey to indicate the level of public education?

Mr. Gordon Edwards: I don't have any survey to indicate it. Surveys do cost money and I don't think those surveys have been done. But I believe in Canada, with its 50-year history of nuclear power, it's long overdue that the federal government take the lead in providing some balanced education on these nuclear issues, and it should not consign it to the nuclear industry to do the job.

I find it really strange that in all the time I have been working on these issues, and even before, the Canadian government has not once, ever, initiated an open public process regarding the entire nuclear question. This is a good opportunity to do it. In order to make sense of it, however, I think it would be necessary first of all to cancel this test burn, at least until we have a chance to have a consensus emerge.

Ms. Kristen Ostling: On the public education issue, one of the things the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout does is it addresses an enormous amount of information requests on this issue, and we barely keep up with the requests and letters we get through our office every day. So there's a tremendous need to educate the public. The public is very concerned. We just don't have the resources to deal with all the information people want on this issue, and in particular on the plutonium fuel issue. Every day we get requests for information on this.

The other thing, about consultation, is that the only opportunity we've had to be consulted on this issue is right now, today. I wanted to say we really appreciate that.

About public opinion polls, there's one I am aware of. It was from 1995 and it was conducted by Health Canada. This was on health issues. They ranked nuclear issues, in particular nuclear waste, as one of the top ten issues for health.

There's a lot of concern in Canada about this issue. I would endorse the proposal made by Dr. Edwards that if you put forward any recommendation, it should be for much broader public consultation in Canada before this initiative goes through. Even if it doesn't, we need to have cross-country hearings on nuclear issues, including nuclear non-proliferation.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Actually, you're right, this is what we're doing as part of our process. In fact, we mentioned that earlier when they were there.

Mr. Gordon Edwards: Our organization does maintain a website, and we have a directory that has a large section on plutonium. I would encourage any of you to go to it yourself. The address is very simple. It's ccnr.org.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): The department's response was that they have a website; they are putting everything on the website. Have you looked at their website?

Mr. Gordon Edwards: Unfortunately we're faced with this enormous conflict of interest, which the Canadian government has never even addressed, and it is that the regulatory agency and the industry itself report to the same department, which is NRCan, which is the promotional agency; and there is no fresh air. no diversity of views. That's a real problem.

• 1120

In the States, for example, many different agencies have a role to play in the nuclear field, like the Environmental Protection Agency, various state agencies, and the U.S. General Accounting Office, which plays a major role in nuclear materials. There's also the United States Geological Survey. There are a lot of different agencies with nuclear capabilities and you get a lot more diversity in the information. Here, it's pretty much the same story, whether you talk to AECB or AECL or whatever. You get the same literature.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Dr. Griffiths.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: Yes, I have just a small point to add on this question of education. I held, again, what was was a stakeholders' retreat. It was a stakeholders' retreat in part—in fact it was one—whereas I had hoped to have the media there, to have that whole thing open. The fact of the matter was that the proponents—and I'm thinking basically of AECL and Ontario Hydro—were not happy with that idea, and the only way that meeting could proceed was, so to speak, behind closed doors.

To explain what was going on, it was basically that the proponents did not wish to spook the public by getting this stuff out. I would commend you for any efforts this committee makes to hold hearings and get it out.

But fundamentally, I think the proponents would rather not have a debate, because it will raise dread. There's the dread factor that's inherent in here, and I think they'd rather have a quiet technical discussion.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Dr. Griffiths, that actually has a familiar ring to it.

Ms. Debien.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien (Laval-Est, BQ): I'd like to begin by making an observation. We know that, since 1975, Canada or the Canadian public purse, as you put it earlier, has spent close to $13 billion for its nuclear program.

Well, we know that there are no longer any possibilities of sales here, at home or even abroad. So, Atomic Energy of Canada has turned towards the particularly repressive countries where human rights are concerned, and that's where Atomic Energy of Canada has directed its sales of CANDU reactors.

A rather disconcerting coincidence, since that is also when Canada gave up having an effective policy on respect for human rights. We also know, since Atomic Energy of Canada was forced to reveal its operations, that it has spent very close to $60 million since the 1980s on so-called entertainment expenses. These expenses were more or less disguised bribes to the countries Atomic Energy was dealing with in its efforts to sell reactors.

Since those countries have particularly marred reputations for corruption and breaches of human rights, it's yet another disconcerting coincidence that we directed our sales towards these promising countries.

That's my first observation. I'm talking about disconcerting coincidences, since this is borne out by the Canadian policy on human rights.

My question is somewhat connected to Mr. Grewal's with regard to your role in educating the public and promoting awareness.

Earlier you listed some of the means you used. In addition to promoting public awareness, you talked about different ways of promoting awareness and education. Can you talk about the actual means you use or that you might use in future to promote Canadians' and Quebeckers' awareness of nuclear problems?

• 1125

Ms. Kristen Ostling: We use several methods to promote awareness among the Canadian public. For instance, we issue very frequent press releases, and nuclear issues are raised in the media. So, that's one of the methods we use.

In addition, we often give lectures in universities, across Canada. Professor Gordon Edwards has toured Canada to talk about this issue. We do so at our expense. These presentations are very expensive. We also use the Internet. This has really changed the way we work. We're now able to communicate with people across Canada; it's fantastic.

Frequently there are people, including the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, that call us to get more information. We also use Web sites.

There are many methods. However, we would like to have a public debate, an organized debate in consultation with the government, but also with any groups and individuals who would like to make some presentations. This is one thing our committee could recommend. It could be a conference with government representatives who could go across Canada, because there are a lot of people, not just in Ontario, but throughout Canada, who are interested in the issue.

[English]

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you, Ms. Ostling. Mr. Bachand is next.

Mr. Gordon Edwards: May I just add something to that, please?

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Very quickly, Mr. Edwards, because we're running out of time.

Mr. Gordon Edwards: I want to add that we do have a French part on our web page, which is widely used and looked at. There's another method we use to reach the public; we're always open to public debates. And for many years, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has boycotted public debates with our organization. They are not interested in participating.

We are currently working with David Suzuki's show, The Nature of Things. They are doing a show on the plutonium question and have informed me that they cannot get anyone from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Ontario Hydro or the Government of Canada who is willing to be interviewed on this subject. I think we have a problem there. The nuclear industry and the government agencies responsible for the nuclear industry have deliberately stifled public education by not participating in debates.

We've even had events in the same city where the Canadian Nuclear Association is having its meetings. We've had an opportunity to have a public forum and we have been denied any participation from representatives of the nuclear industry. They could have participated and expressed their point of view. I believe this is a deliberate attempt to simply stifle public discussion and public education.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Mr. Bachand, quickly, because we're out of time, and I would remind colleagues we have a briefing on the Iraqi situation at 11.30 a.m. in Room 536 of the Wellington Building.

[Translation]

Mr. André Bachand (Richmond—Arthabaska, PC): About MOx, I think we had a little experience in Quebec that could be compared to this one, with PCBs. At an earlier meeting, I talked about what people thought about PCBs. So, imagine what it is in this case. For me, the position is very clear: we're against that experiment, against the whole issue of MOx. I think this has to be used to get people interested in nuclear issues.

That being said, my position on MOx is very clear, but I would perhaps like to hear Mr. Griffiths on the nuclear question in general. You have about a minute and a half left to summarize your position for me, but the committee has to do a report on the nuclear issue in its broad sense.

• 1130

MOx is one thing, but I'd like to hear your position on the nuclear question from the military, medical and energy point of view. I think that's pretty easy. Where do you stand in this regard, Mr. Griffiths?

[English]

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): I might add that if you want send us anything on those issues afterwards, please do. This is a long-term study and we're going to be looking at these other issues.

Mr. Griffiths.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: I honestly can't answer too much of that question in the 30 seconds we have remaining.

In my view the whole nuclear business, civil and military, is gross. It is heavy-handed, unsubtle, excessive. Even in the military domain there are surely much better ways to secure ourselves. There are much more discriminating, shall we say, forms of violence we can use if we want to. I would say the same is true in the energy field. This whole thing is primitive. Humankind should be able, without too much delay, to evolve itself into more adapted, sensitive, and again, I would say, subtle forms of destruction, if that's what we're going to do, and also more subtle forms of looking after ourselves—less destructive.

Mr. André Bachand: The medical aspect.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: The medical aspect of this is potentially enormous. Even those who live downwind from the Bruce B stations, if they are using MOX, I think will experience effects over time. The plant life will experience effects.

However, if you're asking me whether the MOX initiative is a medical time bomb that will explode in five years, I would have to say the answer is probably no. It's not that grave.

[Translation]

Mr. André Bachand: Mr. Griffiths, I was talking about the aspect of treatment, the positive aspect of radiation, of technology with regard to human beings. This is an argument we frequently hear.

It must be said that after all there are some positive effects in this regard. But taking natural products might help just as much.

[English]

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: Yes, there are. You can irradiate food. There are all kinds of things one can do. Plutonium is not necessarily the element you want to work with, though.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Gordon Edwards: We do have for your information, both in French and in English, in connection with the proposal to build a nuclear reactor in Quebec at Sherbrooke, to produce, among other things, medical radioisotopes.... We were involved very much in that struggle, and on our website, which you can access, we have a document that deals with nuclear medicine.

The fact is that nuclear medicine existed long before nuclear reactors. The use of radioisotopes in medicine—the use of X-rays, the use of radiotherapy, and so on—does not depend in any fundamental way on either uranium or plutonium. So you could see a phase-out of nuclear power, and even nuclear weapons, without losing the use of radioisotopes in nuclear medicine in any way.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): I wonder if you could send a copy of that to the clerk. We can get it distributed around and it would be helpful.

Mr. Gordon Edwards: Yes.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Ms. Ostling.

Ms. Kristen Ostling: I just wanted to table another couple of documents. We will be sending in more, and we're certainly available for further meetings like this. I just find that the time is so short and we have a lot more issues to discuss. We look forward to more opportunities to meet with you.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): As I mentioned earlier, probably, given the nature of the subject, we will continue and have more talks, particularly on the MOX.

Ms. Kock.

Ms. Irene Kock: I want to thank you for the invitation. We really appreciate your attention to this issue.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): Thank you very much.

Mr. Franklyn Griffiths: I too would like to thank you very much.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Bob Speller): We stand adjourned.