[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, October 10, 1996
.1107 
[English]
The Chairman: I call this meeting to order.
We're here again today to discuss Bill C-23, an act to establish the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
We're pleased to have representations from three different groups: from the Canadian Labour Congress, Mr. Ménard and Mr. Dassios; from the Citizens Organized for Responsible Process, Miss Arleen Reinsborough and Mr. Silvester; and from the Energy Probe Research Foundation, Mr. Norman Rubin. Welcome.
We're going to ask each of the groups today to make an opening statement. I would ask you to limit that opening statement to ten minutes. Following that, we will have an opportunity to go around the table and have an interchange of questions and answers between the various members and the witnesses.
I remind the committee members, and will also ask the witnesses, to remain focused on Bill C-23. This is a study of that bill, and although there is some latitude in the discussion, we should be arriving back on the piece of legislation we have in front of us. So I would ask everybody to respect the relevancy rules.
Having said that, does anybody want to go first?
Mr. Chris Dassios (Legal Counsel, Power Workers' Union, Canadian Labour Congress): We thank you for the opportunity to make the presentation today.
I won't read verbatim from our written submission, but I will refer to parts of it.
The Canadian Labour Congress represents 2.2 million workers in both public and private sectors across Canada. Of these, many thousands qualify as nuclear energy workers under the bill. They work in the whole nuclear fuel and energy cycle, from mining and processing through to nuclear power, and to the application of nuclear energy in industry, medicine and agriculture, for instance, in the production of radioisotopes.
The CLC welcomes, in principle, the introduction of Bill C-23. We would like to see the bill become law at the earliest opportunity, basically for two reasons.
.1110
First, the Atomic Energy Control Act needs updating. I won't say anything further about this, but I think that's generally agreed to be the case. Secondly, there's been over a decade of paralysis in regulating activity by the Atomic Energy Control Board in anticipation of new legislation. It's about time that paralysis ended.
We do have some concerns, however, about certain parts of the bill. You'll see in paragraph one on the second page of our submission that we have specific concerns about the new commission's power of exemption under the bill. The commission is given broad powers in clause 7 and paragraph 44(1)(u) to exempt - in the case of clause 7, to exempt permanently from parts of the bill, certain entities, substances, etc., in accordance with the regulations.
We don't have the regulations, obviously. From our perspective, if Parliament has deemed the matter of nuclear safety to be a matter of national concern, which they have, and the Supreme Court of Canada has found it to be a matter of national concern, which they have, Parliament should determine the scope of the area of concern. It shouldn't be left to regulations or the commission, but it should be subject to the same public scrutiny that's being carried out today. If the bill is being passed to cover a certain area by Parliament, Parliament should have the final say over the limits of that area. Those comments apply both in respect of clause 7 and paragraph 44(1)(u).
In a similar vein, in paragraph 21.1(a) the commission can enter into an arrangement with any regulatory agency or department of a foreign government in order to attain its objects. This is a provision entirely unwarranted by the international considerations of the bill, where the chief institutions are the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations and the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
Until Bill C-62, the Regulatory Efficiency Act ignominiously died. It contained a similar provision, but there were clear indications that the government was prepared to remove it during the parliamentary process. The provision should be similarly removed from Bill C-23.
Again, clause 49 makes it an offence not to report for duty at a nuclear facility, despite the existence of a legal strike or a lockout. This Draconian provision, aimed solely at workers, not employers, cuts across labour relations law and should simply be deleted from the bill. I'll have more to say about that in a moment.
Reading from page 2 of the submission, there are certain areas where there's not enough power granted.
The authority of the commission's inspectors needs to be strengthened. Bill C-23 contains a provision in clause 33 whereby inspectors may require any other person to accompany them on site inspections and other activities. In clause 35, inspectors are also accorded wide powers, which they may implement by order, if they consider it necessary to fulfil the aims of the bill.
Further, workers are protected from employer discipline, in paragraph 48(g), and employers, in turn, are required to respect conditions of employment in regard to worker radiation doses, in paragraph 48(h).
But the bill stops short of requiring inspectors to make all reasonable efforts to have members of the joint workplace health and safety committee or of the joint environmental committee, where there is one, accompany inspectors on site visits and to involve the joint committee in the inspector's regulatory activities.
Such a provision would be entirely in accordance with the health and safety concerns of the bill and with Canada's workplace health and safety regime, developed internationally through the ILO.
In past years, the International Atomic Energy Agency has also made attempts to involve workers in the health and safety aspects of the industry, viewing worker involvement in the wake of Chernobyl as essential to the effective management of nuclear risk. Bill 208, now a law in Ontario, contains provisions for the cooperation of worker representatives on the joint committee with the inspectorate.
From our perspective, surely the overriding interest in inspectors doing inspections is that the inspector be apprised of all pertinent information and concerns, including those of the workers and managers who work on the front lines at the nuclear facility and who are responsible for health and safety in the workplace. Federal and provincial occupational health and safety legislation recognizes the fact that the greatest amount of information is important in the context of health and safety statutes. This bill should not fall below that standard.
It is important that people in the workplace feel some ownership over and responsibility for nuclear issues arising in the workplace. They need to be a part of the process so that the process can be carried out most effectively and so that responsibility can be felt by people on the front lines. As recent events have shown, people who are not willing to take responsibility for their actions or those of their subordinates sometimes end up having to resign their position.
.1115
Furthermore, as for the cost-recovery provisions of Bill C-23, it's our view that cost recovery should be spread across the board so as not to create any incentives for employers to try to convince inspectors not to write orders.
Finally, as at page 3, the CLC's major objection to Bill C-23 lies in the provisions to hand over the regulations and their administration and enforcement to the provinces. The summary of the bill says that the proposed act provides authority for the Governor in Council and the commission to delegate powers to the provinces in areas better regulated by them. Natural Resources Canada's background information states that the legislation will ``eliminate unnecessary overlap and duplication'' and regulatory arrangements. Then subclauses 44(5) to 44(11) allow for the administration of federal regulations by the provinces and for provincial regulations, along with administration, enforcement and the initiation of prosecutions, to take the place of federal law.
The rationale advanced for this move is entirely spurious in our view. In the first place, there is no overlap or duplication in the regulation of nuclear safety or radiation protection. Provincial governments do of course regulate nuclear matters - for example, x-ray machines and nuclear medicine - but there is no overlap between the work of the existing AECB and the work of provincial agencies. The only possible purpose that clause 44 could serve is to alienate the existing authority of the successor to the AECB.
Further, it is difficult to see how the aims of national security and the implementation of international agreements could be served by the alienation of authority. Either the provinces would implement the national concerns of the Nuclear Safety Commission, in which case nothing is gained by decentralization, or the provinces would implement weaker rules with weaker enforcement, in which case the aims and purpose of Bill C-23 would be compromised.
There's no case for asserting that rules would be better regulated by the provinces, and no warrant is given anywhere by the government for this assertion. To the contrary, provinces such as Alberta and Ontario are radically shrinking the size and effectiveness of their health and safety departments, and they are radically eroding the enforcement of regulations. These provinces have neither the will nor the resources to take on the additional burden of regulating nuclear safety and radiation protection. To hand over a high-risk industry to the provinces would be a major move toward the depths of folly.
The problem is, as I indicated earlier, that everybody recognizes that nuclear safety is a matter of national concern. It should be the national government and only the national government that determines issues relating to it. The provinces and the provincial governments are elected by their constituents to look after the concerns of those constituents. But we all know that nuclear safety has cross-boarder implications and it should be the federal government that takes responsibility for regulation in those areas.
Of particular concern is subclause 44(6) on page 30 of the bill, which permits the incorporation of provincial regulations as they may be from time to time. This means that provincial regulation would automatically apply in the nuclear field unless and until the federal government played catch-up and tried to amend what the provinces had done. To leave it in the hands of the provinces and to have the federal government chasing after them at the end of the day is unsatisfactory from our point of view.
The last point, which I alluded to earlier, is on clause 49, on page 34 of the draft bill. This is a matter of particular concern to the labour movement because it has no precedent, as far as we know, in the field and it has rather Draconian consequences. The clause reads:
- Notwithstanding the occurrence of a legal strike or lockout, every person commits an offence
who does not report for duty at a nuclear facility or who, while on duty at a nuclear facility,
withdraws their services, except where the person is not required to report or is relieved in
accordance with a procedure set out in the licence for the nuclear facility.
First, if an employer locks out employees and does so not in accordance with the licence, the employees by this clause are required to report for work on pain of fine or imprisonment. They are being punished for the employer's violations of their licence provisions, and that doesn't seem right at all. No punishment is handed out to the employer in those circumstances.
Furthermore, they're required to report to work, but if they're locked out the employer isn't going to pay them. If you're sending people to work by statute, you should ensure that they're paid for their labour.
.1120
There's no penalty to the employer, the corporate entity that has the licence, for locking out not in accordance with the licence. Individuals can be punished by fine or imprisonment for not showing up for work. The licence-holder isn't punished by fine or imprisonment for locking out not in accordance with the licence. So the clause is one-sided.
We have two overriding concerns about whether this clause is necessary at all. In our view, it's not. There's no history of unsafe shutdowns of nuclear plants as a result of labour disputes, and one wonders why this clause is necessary at all.
Second, if it is an unsafe shutdown that is the concern of Parliament, then the clause should say that. It should read that anybody responsible for an unsafe shutdown shall be punishable by fine or imprisonment. It's hardly the business of the proposed Nuclear Safety and Control Act to regulate labour relations except inasmuch as they have a direct relationship to safety and control. That relationship, that point of contact, comes with respect to unsafe shutdowns.
This clause, if it is left in the bill at all - and it shouldn't be - should really focus on unsafe shutdowns and punishments that mirror on both sides with respect to the employers and the employees.
Those are our submissions, subject to any questions you might have.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Go ahead, Ms Reinsborough.
Ms Arleen Reinsborough (Representative, Citizens Organized for Responsible Process): Mr. Chairman, Madam Clerk and members, thank you for inviting us to our House today. Citizens Organized for Responsible Process is a grassroots organization. The focus of our presentation is on Bill C-23, the proposed Nuclear Safety and Control Act, and the concomitant establishment of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Despite what might have been genuinely good intentions by the authors, the translation from theory to practice may result in little more than a prima facie improvement upon the current Atomic Energy Control Act of 1946 and its accompanying quasi-judicial body, the AECB.
A number of clauses in this bill constitute potential improvements over the existing statute. However, owing to the panoply of discretionary areas - always a source of problems - these potential improvements may never be realized.
Mr. Dan Silvester (Researcher, Citizens Organized for Responsible Process): As well, there are certain crucial concerns that have not as yet been appropriately addressed in Bill C-23.
These areas of concern include, but are not limited to, such issues as: one, the practice of self-monitoring by licensees; two, the need for any and all communities to be willing hosts before any nuclear establishment can be located in them; three, the need for the public to be properly informed in the event that certain amendments and/or other changes are made to an existing licence; four, the need to change the way in which waste is classified as either high- or low-level waste, which is to say, the current classification system right now is in accordance with the source of the waste, not according to the radioactive, radiotoxic levels of waste, as should be the case; and five, there's a need to clarify the way in which the proposed legislation will interface with already existing legislation, for example, the Nuclear Liability Act.
Ms Reinsborough: Curiously missing from Bill C-23 is a mechanism by which the commission can be made accountable. With the credibility and integrity of the AECB having reached an all-time low, it is clear that this body requires supervision by an objective third party.
[Translation]
M. Silvester: Moreover, definitions of certain terms are a problem. There is a definite need to move away from the use of imprecise language and, where appropriate, tighten it up. What is and is not appropriate will, in all likelihood, be the focus of some debate. Regardless, the decisions made on these and all other issues pertaining to Bill C-23 should be in accordance with democratic principles.
[English]
Ms Reinsborough: Given the personnel currently on the AECB, and the manner in which the Canatom radioactive waste facility in Oakville was virtually forced into that community, there is also a need for some degree of public input regarding the personnel who are to sit on the proposed commission. Wide latitudes of discretion are made available to the proposed commission via Bill C-23, which, depending on the personal/political agendas of its members, may allow for decision-making that is not in the best interests of the people of this country.
.1125
Personnel who are conscientious from an environmental point of view and a health and safety point of view would definitely be best suited to act in the best interests of the people not just here at the national level, but elsewhere at the international level. Certainly, any international agreement - for example, the proposed importation of MOX plutonium 239 to Canada - that poses a potential danger to the environment and/or health and safety concerns anywhere is not in the best interests of the people of this planet.
[Translation]
M. Silvester: Whenever discretion is exercised by this Commission, public input should become mandatory and, ipso facto, be entrenched into the letter and spirit of the statute. We believe that now, when a new bill is being tabled, is the time to fight for greater financial accountability and to put into question the quasi-judicial nature of this controlling body. That this Board is incapable of effectively acting in the best interests of the people has been demonstrated over and over again.
[English]
Ms Reinsborough: As an additional backgrounder to the manner in which Bill C-23 was critiqued by ourselves as a grassroots organization, we have enclosed a review of some of the polemics endemic to the Oakville matter, specifically of the nuclear industry generally.
The following is a clause-by-clause outline of the bill we critiqued.
In paragraph 3(a), line 9 of the bill, no definition was given for ``unreasonable risk''.
In regard to clause 5, exclusion of the Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces, naval vessels, and any ``regulations'' made pursuant to the act is a concern for us.
In clause 7, the commission may, in accordance with the regulations, exempt any activity, person, class of person or quantity of a nuclear substance, temporarily or permanently.
Mr. Silvester: In clause 2, the ``nuclear facility'' can refer to a plant that makes processing or use, in a quantity greater than 1015 becquerels per calendar year, of nuclear substances other than uranium, thorium or plutonium. This quantity fails to acknowledge the fact that there is as yet no known safe level of radiation exposure and also that differential sensitivities to radiation by different individuals may elicit different effects.
In clause 2, in defining ``radiation,'' there is no definition of the word ``sufficient'' re energy/ionisation. Once again, quantification becomes a problem.
Ms Reinsborough: We will skip some of the conditions the CLC just outlined, because we are in agreement with workers having the right to return to work when they feel the situation is safe.
So we will go on to paragraph 24(2)(c). The commission may still be receiving a substantial portion of its revenue from licensing fees. At the present time, it's 75% and they are considering 100%. The objectivity of that commission may be compromised because of this.
In subclause 24(4), the commission may make some of its licensing decisions on the basis of ``opinion''.
In paragraph 24(4)(a), there is no definition as to what ``qualified'' means. Does the licensee need to be experienced in order to be qualified?
In subclause 24(5), financial guarantees by the applicant may be a condition of the commission's issuance of a licence.
In paragraph 26(d), no person shall operate a dosimetry service for the purposes of this act. This eliminates the possibility of objective third-party verifications or of grassroots...like ourselves wanting to be in control of what's happening in our community from a municipal or provincial point of view.
In paragraphs 27(a) and (b), the licensee still monitors itself without verification by an objective third party.
.1130
Mr. Silvester: In subclause 35(1), the powers of an inspector are discretionary. He or she may protect the environment or health and safety matters, or, alternatively, lean toward maintaining national security or compliance with international agreements; for example, utilization and storage of plutonium, and so on.
In paragraph 39(1)(c), a ``designated officer'' shall provide a reasonable opportunity to be heard to any person named in or subject to the order - it's unclear as to who this may include as well as exclude - before confirming, amending, revoking or replacing an order. This limits the matters on which a person may be heard.
In regard to subclause 39(2), paragraph 39(1)(c) does not apply in respect of a renewal, suspension, amendment, revocation or replacement of a licence on the application of the licensee. This deprives concerned individuals or stakeholders of the right to natural justice, something to which they are rightfully entitled.
In clause 40, the commission provides persons with the right to be heard only on matters pertaining to orders.
Ms Reinsborough: In subclause 40(4), the commission shall only give notice of a decision to any person named in, or subject to, an order where the proceedings were in relation to an order. This is far too limiting. Notification should quite properly be given regardless of all decisions that are made.
Subclause 42(3), on liability, says:
- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the liability of an operator under the Nuclear
Liability Act.
In clause 43, on appeals of decisions, orders can only be made by a person who is directly affected. This is subjective and potentially limiting in scope.
Redeterminations by the commission may be done on its own initiative. This could be good, but it could also not be good, depending on the original decision, on the order that was made.
Mr. Silvester: In clause 44, the commission, with the approval of the Governor in Council, may make regulations on almost anything. This individual thinks there's too much leeway here. If the regulations favour the protection of the environment and/or health and safety matters, we all stand to benefit, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
If it veers in the direction of maintaining national security and/or compliance with international agreements, we will suffer severe setbacks. The truth is, our national security is and always has been a product of U.S. national securities policies.
As for international agreements, for example, the proposed storage and use of plutonium, importation of plutonium from U.S. and Russia, and so on, resulting from the decommissioning of nuclear weapons, these are matters that require much greater scrutiny.
Subclause 44(6) attempts to incorporate provincial statutes under its regulatory control, something that must not happen, despite the reluctance of the province to pursue these matters on the pretext that they fall under federal jurisdiction.
Ms Reinsborough: In subclause 47(1), emergency orders are too subjective and can occur without notice.
In clause 48, it's almost impossible to accurately assess for alleged offences to the act since facilities are self-monitored.
In subclause 62(1), compensation or loss of or damage to property, it's unclear as to how this clause interfaces with the Nuclear Liability Act.
In clause 65, if an offender fails to comply with a condition as required by the commission under certain circumstances, the commission may publish the facts. That's too subjective.
In clause 87, the Atomic Energy Control Act will now only cover those objects normally associated with the AECL; for example, the development and utilization of nuclear energy. The AECL also needs to be supervised by an objective third party.
In clause 89, proposed section 1, the AEC Act may be cited as the Nuclear Energy Act. This is the statutory dichotomy of what we have anticipated for governing the existing AECB and AECL.
[Translation]
M. Silvester: In conclusion, discretionary areas of any statute will invariably place those affected at the whims of those so empowered. Our observations and experience with the individuals comprising the AECB is that they have always sided with the business sector to the exclusion of all other considerations, regardless of how blatant those other considerations might be. Since Mr. R. Murray Duncan and other AECB members will inherit the new positions created vis-a-vis Sections 75 and 76 of Bill C-23, CORP remains considerably skeptical about this tribunal's ability to act fairly and impartially.
.1135
Bestowing the AECB with such wide discretionary powers along with the right to draw up its own set of regulations may be tantamount to signing a death warrant for many Canadians while allowing for the ongoing destruction of an already badly damaged ecosystem.
We expect little to change unfortunately.
[English]
Ms Reinsborough: Three areas that would help put some more backbone into this bill, which we perceive as lame otherwise, would be to allow for more public input, greater accountability through all the phases of decision-making, as well as regarding all deals between the commission and the applicant and the licensee.
[Translation]
M. Silvester: Second, the language should be tightened in this part of the bill.
Third, the process used to appoint people to positions of power must be changed. The individuals selected to sit on this tribunal have the power to decide who will be appointed as panel members, inspectors, analysts, designated officers, etc. Clearly, the appointees will share the same values and opinions with those individuals who chose them. Even research contracts will be awarded to groups sharing like opinions on the critical issues. This bill does nothing to eradicate or even mitigate the incestuous and esoteric nature of the nuclear establishment. It will only serve to maintain the status quo and shape a self-fullfilling prophecy scenario.
[English]
Ms Reinsborough: Thank you for allowing us to make this submission.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. I must compliment you: you certainly adhered to our request for specificity.
Mr. Rubin.
Mr. Norman Rubin (Director, Nuclear Research, Energy Probe Research Foundation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here representing Energy Probe. I've been representing Energy Probe for a long time, since 1978. I note that I'm just about as old as the Atomic Energy Control Act. Energy Probe is also pretty old, the oldest project of Energy Probe Research Foundation, which now has approximately 50,000 supporters across Canada.
I've outlined on the first page of my written submission some of the important ways in which the world has changed since the Atomic Energy Control Act and I were born, especially areas that are specifically relevant to the need to change this law - and change it, I would submit, more fundamentally than Bill C-23 proposes to change it.
There are two areas in which the world has changed significantly: one is in the role of nuclear energy and public attitudes toward nuclear energy, and the other is in the regulation of the release into the environment of toxic and hazardous substances that threaten the environment and public health. The field that we now know as environmental protection is one of many phrases that was not in currency in 1946 that now is in currency and has been for quite a while.
.1140
I note that nuclear generating stations in 1946 were associated with the phrase ``energy too cheap to meter''. I note that in 1996 they are increasingly associated with the phrase ``stranded assets'' or ``debt overhang''. Times have changed.
Turning to the area of regulation and public attitude toward the environment, I've listed a number of words and phrases that either did not exist at all in 1946 or were never heard: the words ``ecosystem'' and stakeholder''; the phrase ``Minister of the Environment''; the phrases ``Environmental Bill of Rights'', ``the ecosystem approach'', ``best practicable technology'', ``best available technology economically achievable'', ``virtual elimination'', ``priority substances list'', ``the precautionary principle'' and ``candidate substances for ban or phase-out''. These phrases are important because they are now the stuff and substance of modern, enlightened, democratic environmental regulation. They are not, I note, the stuff and substance of nuclear hazard regulation, because they are not principles adopted by the Atomic Energy Control Board.
When I see Bill C-23 and I see that these principles are not in it either, nor does the language of the bill facilitate their implementation, I suggest that Bill C-23 sounds like it was either drafted in the 1960s or 1970s or was drafted by the Atomic Energy Control Board. I suggest that we are at an important juncture now, where collectively we have the opportunity to bring nuclear regulation into the 1990s and beyond. We should not be content to bring it into the 1960s or 1970s.
In consultation, I note that when the AECB staff and AECB advisory committees consult on policy changes, they consult their licensees long before the public is even informed that there might be a policy change. Creators of the regulated hazards, the licensees, get to see and review draft policy statements in the early stages, several drafts before they are released to the public as so-called consultative documents.
I have seen, through pre-trial discoveries in our challenge of the Nuclear Liability Act, many examples of the correspondence going back and forth between licensees and the board long before I, as an interested member of a non-governmental organization, knew there was a discussion. By the time I get to see the consultative document, it generally looks just like the final policy - not surprising since what I see as the first draft is really the fifth or sixth. That is not what environmental regulators in democratic countries traditionally call consultation.
In short, AECB and nuclear regulation in Canada need more than a new name and more powers to the guardians of the status quo. Things are changing fast in this area. Specifically, there is increasing scrutiny federally and in the province of Ontario of a regulatory double standard that allows Canadians to be exposed to much higher cancer risks from radioactive pollutants than from non-radioactive pollutants that can cause cancer.
I included a number of primary documents on pages 11 and following of this submission that document, albeit briefly, some of the realization and review of that double standard. Part of it, unfortunately, is still secret. I've brought with me draft six of what is called Risk Assessment Methods for Chemical and Radiological Hazards, which is a joint review by two federal departments of this double standard. I understand that they are now up to draft twelve, which they will not give me. I did happen to get a copy of draft six, not directly from the review itself, and I've quoted some interesting parts from that. Perhaps this committee can get draft twelve, as I cannot. I am confident that it is even more enlightened than draft six was. The federal government admits in draft six what it has generally not admitted until then: that there is a double standard.
.1145
The approach is far more protective of human health when it comes to carcinogenic chemicals then when it comes to radiation. Of course, none of your constituents is any more willing to get cancer from radioactive pollution than from non-radioactive pollution. I hope I don't sound stupid by saying something that is this self-evident, but this is revolutionary talk in Ottawa, especially in the halls of the Atomic Energy Control Board.
The first clash between Environment Canada, which has modern environmental protection principles, and the Atomic Energy Control Board, which does not, surfaced, from my view, in 1984, over draft codes of environmental practice. I've given some excerpts from a couple of documents on pages 11 to 14. I then, in my written brief, go to some length to talk about the double standard that surfaced. I was attacked on the issue of the cancer risk from radioactive tritium in drinking water in Ontario.
The key document in this struggle was the document I have in my hand, entitled A Standard for Tritium: A Recommendation to the Minister of the Environment and Energy, a 1994 report by the Ontario advisory committee on environmental standards. In brief, it recommended that the cancer risk from tritium in drinking water in Ontario at the limit is comparable to the cancer risk from carcinogenic chemicals at the limit in drinking water in Ontario - chemicals like N-NitrosoDimethylAmine, called NDMA for short, chemicals like benzene, and chemicals like trihelomethanes.
It recommended a lifetime cancer risk of one per million, not risks approaching 0.1% or 0.5% over a lifetime, as is traditionally the case for radioactive cancer-causing agents in our drinking water. What they said was revolutionary.
One part of the nuclear establishment that sprang into action upon the publication of this report to urge the Ontario government not to protect the health of its people by enacting this recommendation was the Atomic Energy Control Board, which weighed in with heavy-handed language - which I quote and document in this paper - threatening to stop cooperating with the bureaucrats of the Ontario government should a recommendation that is unnecessarily restrictive be adopted.
I believe that is one of four instances that I cite and document here in which the Atomic Energy Control Board has worked very hard to prevent the improvement of the protection of public health from radioactive cancer-causing agents in public. That's a funny role for a regulator, in my view.
When you read the act, you find that it facilitates that funny role for a regulator. It does not establish that the role of the regulator is to protect public health and the environment. I'll get to that in just a moment.
I'd like to point out some other page references that I didn't put in. The letter cited at the bottom of page 4 of my brief.... There are two letters there. One is on page 15 and the other is on pages 16 to 18. There is an excerpt on pages 19 to 23 from the document cited at the top of page 5. Finally, the document cited at the top of page 6 of my brief - the letter from the president of AECB - is presented in its entirety on pages 29 to 32.
.1150
I'd like to steer you to the purpose of the bill. This will be, after all, an act to protect and regulate - to protect public health and the environment and to regulate a hazardous activity. What does it state as its purpose? Its purpose, we are told in clause 3, is to provide for the development, production, and use of nuclear energy and the production, possession, and use of nuclear substances, etc.
Is it me, or is it stupid in here? That is not the way one writes the purpose of a regulatory health and environmental protection act - not where I come from. It's very strange language. I doubt we could find parallel language in any other such bill or act.
It is our recommendation that the regulation of the hazardous materials that may come out of a nuclear facility be regulated, not by the hazardous industry's own regulator, but by those whose job it is to regulate hazardous substances and carcinogenic substances that come out of hazardous facilities.
There is no reason to separate the two establishments that have created this double standard. They should be united. They eventually will be. God willing, we will all live long enough to see that day. You have an opportunity to hasten that day, and I urge you to take it.
I have a number of specific comments on the bill, should you choose to tinker with it rather than thoroughly redo it and unite these two regulatory approaches. I will mention only two of them. They're documented in detail.
The first is contained in the second ``whereas'', which suggests that it is essential in the national interest that consistent international standards be applied to nuclear energy. I have no idea who thinks that's essential in the interest of Canada, but I certainly do not and I hope you do not.
I note as well that there seems to be no provision - there certainly is no express provision - empowering the Nuclear Safety Commission to award either funding or cost awards to public interest interveners in their proceedings. That suggests to me, again, that we are updating a 1946 act to the 1960s or 1970s, not to the 1990s.
That power could be read into a number of provisions, perhaps subclause 21(1)(b). Rather than leave it for people to shoehorn it into sections that don't seem to relate to it, I would suggest that this power be expressly granted to anybody who is holding public hearings in this area. Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Rubin.
I'll call on the Bloc. Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
M. Deshaies (Abitibi): I thank all interveners. My first question will be directed to Mr. Dassios. You have stated that no part of the federal standards should be contradicted in any provincial standard because federal standards would generally be more stringent.
A witness representing the Ontario government told this committee yesterday that Quebec standards on boilers were the best anywhere and that they should be incorporated into the Canadian standards for the nuclear industry. He told us as well that Ontario inspectors checking the boilers were far more experienced than the AECB inspectors. Indeed, some twenty-odd plants only are under federal jurisdiction, whereas there are 2 000 major boilers or more in Ontario. When Ontario inspectors inspect a plant on behalf of the Ontario government, they demonstrate better expertise.
I would therefore appreciate getting an answer to the following question. Would the public interest not be better served if the inspectors with more experience - in this case, the inspectors working for the province of Ontario - were to take precedence over the AECB inspectors.
.1155
[English]
Mr. Dassios: I'd say a couple of things about that. The Quebec standards may well be higher. Unfortunately, the Ontario standards aren't. Again, this is a matter of national concern. A patchwork quilt of standards does not serve the national interest in ensuring that high standards are met for an area of regulation that has cross-border consequences.
Second, with respect to the experience of inspectors, there already are informal arrangements worked out to achieve that. Frankly, nothing more needs to be done in that area in terms of regulatory powers that holus-bolus adopt regulations. There's a big difference between adopting provincial standards and using the expertise of provincial inspectors. Using the expertise of provincial inspectors can be done on an administrative basis, on an understanding between the AECB and the provincial agencies, without the need for regulation. Adopting the standards themselves runs the risk of watering down standards, particularly in provinces where they are trying to get out of the business of regulating anything.
[Translation]
M. Deshaies: I would more readily agree with Mr. Rubin's view that, after 50 years, it would be necessary to introduce a bill so that the legislation may undergo a much-needed revision once care has been taken to look for the best input from all intervenors. After 50 years, I believe that other standards could have been used - for instance Quebec standards on boilers - and they could simply have been established as national standards.
I shall therefore ask Mr. Rubin a question. At other sittings, I asked that changes be made to the structure of the Board, so that one of the five members would represent the public - clearly, the ability to understand the nature of a nuclear plant and the issues involved would be a prerequisite - and another one would represent the nuclear industry, since this industry also had some concerns about asserting its rights.
What are your thoughts on that?
[English]
Mr. Rubin: I agree. Many parliamentary and other reviews that have looked into the Atomic Energy Control Board have made similar recommendations: first, that the board not report to the minister responsible for the health of the nuclear industry, as I mention in here; and second, that its membership reflect the views of the public on nuclear energy.
We have a public that is at best divided on the subject of nuclear power, and at worst, from the industry point of view, hostile to it, certainly hostile to its expansion, which is represented by an Atomic Energy Control Board that seems to be always wearing a cheerleader uniform. How can they reflect us when their job is to be critical, when their job is to probe and limit and protect us from them? How can we deputize them to do it when they walk, talk and quack so differently from us?
Naturally, the part of the public - the majority of the public - that is critical of this industry would have more confidence in a regulator that shared some of our doubts about the industry.
[Translation]
M. Deshaies: In the same vein, would it be better to separate the components of this legislation pertaining to nuclear safety and the related regulations from the components pertaining to the development of the industry. Each act could be placed under the jurisdiction of a different department; I think that the public might see the Department of the Environment as being in a better position to administer an act on nuclear safety and security with more openness and the Department of Natural Ressources would be a natural choice to deal with an act aimed at promoting the industry.
.1200
[English]
Mr. Rubin: Yes. I believe the separation of the reporting functions for the two acts to two ministers would be a minimum requirement for moving toward the 1990s, but I believe a lot more should be done. You implied, I believe, in your question that safety standards should be written into the act rather than be said within regulation. If that's true, I must say, I am an agnostic on that subject at present.
I would certainly have some suggestions as to where standards should lie, but my impression is that a broadly consultative process, a legitimate process, to determine these levels, not just for radioactive substances, is needed in Canada, and that Environment Canada, for example, because it has a history of openness towards both the public and non-governmental organizations, as Natural Resources Canada and the AECB do not, would be a logical place to have that broad discussion.
But certainly the separation of the promotional aspects now to be contained in the nuclear energy act and the regulatory aspects to be contained in the bulk of Bill C-23 is a step in the right direction. These functions are of course very different and have to be separated. Several of my specific comments, especially on the purpose of the act, are that this separation hasn't been taken seriously enough.
The Chairman: Mr. Chatters.
Mr. Chatters (Athabasca): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was kind of curious about your comments on the need for the entire control of the nuclear industry to be in the hands of the federal government rather than provincial governments. I think it's generally understood in other areas in Canada that more effective protection for the environment and for workers is achieved when that control is as close as possible to the people, and yet you seem to go the other way on this.
I don't deny the need for national standards - certainly that has always been, wherever, responsibility of the federal government - but I question your hesitancy to have the provincial governments administer the regulations and do the inspections.
As well, mentioned many times here was the need for an effective third-party verification. I'm just curious as to who that third party would be, particularly in view of listening to the presentation yesterday by a municipal public health inspector. Certainly if his concerns had been met concerning these things, I would view him as a pretty effective and very local third party.
Finally, what process in terms of the appointment of the commission would meet your concerns? It seems to me quite unproductive to give a majority either to the pro-nuclear industry or to those who would see essentially an end to the nuclear industry in Canada. It seems to me it would be a deadlock on the commission, and it wouldn't be very productive.
So perhaps you can answer those things.
Mr. Dassios: First of all, I disagree with your suggestion that anything would be taken further away from the people by leaving it in federal hands. The federal Canada Labour Code has provisions dealing with occupational health and safety. Banks, transportation companies and the broadcast industry are regulated by those people, and I don't get the sense that anybody feels further away from the government in those sectors than they do in provincially regulated sectors.
There's another problem with the prospect of turning the regulation over to the provinces. As you know, the provinces own the licence-holders, typically. One would have thought that the public would feel more confident in another level of government regulating the owners of the plants and holders of the licences as opposed to the government that owns the owners.
.1205
Ms Reinsborough: We would like to respond to that from our own experience, that of having a nuclear dump already existing in the town of Oakville. We had 3,000 residents who in one month said no, and many thousands more who believed that this couldn't happen in their town and decided that they must be crazy to even come to the conclusion that anybody would allow that to happen.
We tried to interact with the AECB, a federal body, and in our opinion the AECB does not represent the safety or best interests of local people. We now exist with this nuclear dump and we haven't much say in how to get rid of it, sir. So I am really glad you asked that question, because our municipal authorities washed their hands totally of the situation, leaving it in the AECB's hands because the zoning by-laws did not disallow such use in our 80% ethnic neighbourhood.
So we were left with nobody looking after us - not at the federal level, and of course the province was excited not to deal with us, even though I understand they do have nuclear people who come out to the plants and look around to see if they're okay. Those inspectors told us the only power they have is to look around the plant and say, ``Yes, we think everything is done according to regulations.''
The other concern we have is that when we ask for the compliance reports from these facilities, they are generated by the owners of those businesses, and they are generated in the manner in which the owners of those businesses choose to report back to the AECB. The AECB takes their word for it, unless they send out an inspector every time we call, which they haven't done so far. That's what we have been left with - nobody wanting ownership of our situation.
Mr. Silvester: I think any time you place the powers in one particular body, you're setting yourselves up for a situation where invariably you have a monopoly with a particular body as it pertains to a certain set of issues and a certain set of powers.
I would like to see the powers remain entrenched, at least in part, in the province. I think that's in the best interest of the people, as it ensures greater accountability. I would be very hesitant about placing the powers in one particular federal body; I don't think that's at all in the best interest of the people.
Mr. Rubin: If I could just comment briefly, I think unless the Constitution is amended, we are stuck with a number of parts of this. The Supreme Court has judged that nuclear labour, for example, is federal, and it's not going to be easy to change that. I must say, those of us who look at the Constitution and see that nuclear energy is for the good of all of us - I forget exactly how the Constitution states it, but that it is something for the national and public good - have to wonder whether the language has lost all meaning when we look at the reality, and we wonder how to reconcile it with what the Constitution says.
If it is within your power to influence anybody to try to amend that and get it out of there, I think that would certainly be a step towards sanity. But while it's there, we seem to be stuck with federal jurisdiction for large parts of the nuclear enterprise. I believe the best approach might well be to have at least minimum standards set by the federal government and allow modern provinces - Ontario has been such from time to time, and we can argue about whether it is under the current government - to exceed those standards, as Ontario now does on the drinking water standard for tritium.
Ontario is now several times tighter on that standard than the Canadian drinking water guideline, and tighter than any other province, since all of the rest follow the drinking water guideline. Perhaps there will be a leap-frogging and other provinces will catch up, or the Canadian guidelines will more than catch up; we shall see. But in my experience it is much easier to fight city hall than it is for a normal citizen to fight the federal government or the Atomic Energy Control Board.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Chatters: No one has addressed the issue of the process and the make-up of the commission. I am interested in hearing your views on how that might happen to bring some openness, some accountability, into the commission.
.1210
Mr. Silvester: Clearly, the process by which these individuals who will make up the commission are selected will determine who is in fact selected in the long run. Obviously, the selecting body will be selecting certain qualities and characteristics. I'm concerned about what qualities and characteristics they're going to be looking for, what sorts of biases they will bring to the table and, ergo, the resultant decisions that are going to be made as a result of those particular biases.
I'm advocating a greater sensitivity to health, safety, and environmental issues. I don't think that's been demonstrated to this date. I think it needs to start happening now. Anything short of that, to me, is nothing more than paying lip service to these proceedings.
Mr. Chatters: I'm concerned that, if the process is as has been, the commission is a very pro-nuclear industry because of the expertise they're seeking -
Mr. Silvester: Historically that's been the case.
Mr. Chatters: But I would see a number of you - if you had the majority of the board, the nuclear industry in Canada would cease to exist.
Mr. Silvester: We'd certainly be more sensitive to the health, safety, and environmental issues of the country, which we think is the top priority.
Mr. Chatters: So somehow you have to achieve some kind of a balance in the best interest of all Canadians.
Mr. Silvester: Yes, the best interest of all Canadians, recognizing that there are seven members and the majority of those seven members will have to have certain ideological leanings. If national security happens to be the particular area they are interested in, that's what's going to be pushed, and the environmental areas are going to be shoved out of the way.
The Chairman: Mrs. Cowling.
Mr. Rubin: Excuse me, might I respond to that? I do have some specific -
The Chairman: Very briefly, please.
Mr. Rubin: First of all, I think it may be that many environmental assessment panels, for example, if you ask the members privately over a beer whether they like the chemical industry or not, they might tell you they don't, but that doesn't mean they exercise their powers to refuse every application before them or to shut down the industry. The fear that people who lean against an industry will be irrational while people who lean in favour of it will be rational as regulators is not supported by experience.
Secondly, the process that's set up for the commission, I would maintain, is at least as important as the human beings who happen to be on it at any one given time. The Atomic Energy Control Board has instituted some incremental reforms in its process. For example, they now have board meetings outside of Ottawa. They go to communities that are locally affected by licensed activities. That has changed greatly what comes before them at meetings, and that is slowly having an effect on their understanding of what they do as Atomic Energy Control Board members. It can't help but have that effect.
If you instituted more reforms and had the kind of procedures that exist, for example, at federal environmental assessment reviews, at Ontario environmental assessment hearings, or at Ontario energy board hearings - those are the forums I'm most familiar with - where there is funding and cost awards for interveners, where interveners can cross-examine proponents to get to the truth, where there are pre-hearing procedures like interrogatories for getting good information, where one can hire experts and have them there representing you.... These are powerful tools, so a tribunal, regardless of which way its individuals were leaning before it heard the truth, will tend to come up with the truth after it has heard it.
These are very powerful tools. None of them is spelled out well in Bill C-23. None of them will happen soon if the present Atomic Energy Control Board gets to decide its own rules.
The Chairman: I'm going to have to go on to Mrs. Cowling. We'll get a chance later to get back to you, if you want to make another comment on it.
Mrs. Cowling.
Mrs. Cowling (Dauphin - Swan River): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
.1215
I want to thank all of you for coming this morning. I also ask you to keep in mind that our government is very interested in the health and safety of the people we represent, as well as the environmental aspect of this issue. This is an all-party committee, and I'm sure the members opposite also have that as a priority for themselves.
However, with respect to the Atomic Energy Control Board, I have in front of me a radiation monitor. You might ask me why this was put out by the AECB. It was at the request of people who were concerned about the health and safety of their communities, and it was done with the cooperation of representatives from the provincial and federal governments, local health authorities of Ontario Hydro, and local communities. It's almost a weather station, a view of what happens with respect to radiation in those particular communities. I would like to table it because I think it does indicate clearly what's happening in that area.
We've had a number of witnesses around this table who have in fact given us a general consensus that the powers of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission with respect to this Bill C-23 will in fact enhance nuclear regulation in Canada. Why does your group, overall, vary so much from what the majority of people have brought before this committee? Why are you so opposed to enhancing nuclear safety and nuclear energy? Why are you opposed to what these other groups are saying? It's completely opposite to what we've heard.
Mr. Rubin: Are you asking both of us, both Energy Probe and CORP? Are you lumping us together?
The Chairman: Perhaps each of you could provide us with a response.
Mr. Rubin: If I can answer for Energy Probe on both parts of your question, first of all, I've more or less devoted my career to improving nuclear safety, among other things. I don't know who those other groups are, but I know several of the ones that were here two days ago, and I doubt there is a huge conflict between what I'm saying and what they said, although I don't know if you were here on Tuesday.
The role of Ottawa and the federal government in this area is obviously to be supportive of the nuclear industry. Whether you're dealing with mixed oxide fuels, the sale of CANDU reactors to China, or whatever the issue happens to be, it seems that the federal government is as supportive of both its own creatures in the nuclear industry and the rest of the nuclear industry as the Ontario government, for example, used to be. So the question of where one could find a level of government that could be seen as credible in regulating has something to do with whether that government seems to have impartiality. Federally, one is dealing with a conflict of interest. Certainly, when the minister responsible for the health of the industry is the minister who controls the regulator, or when it is this minister through whom or to whom the regulator reports, it's very easy for critics like me to convince intelligent people that there's a problem. It's extremely easy.
About your radiation monitor - or the Atomic Energy Control Board's radiation monitor - I would call your attention to the inescapable comparison that it makes in its graphs and its discussion between the exposures that neighbours of a nuclear generating station get from their neighbour, the nuclear generating station, and exposures that those same people get from living on this planet and receiving cosmic rays and terrestrial radiation.
I would call your attention to page 3 of my brief, where you can see the federal review contrasting the way in which nuclear regulation is done - it is constantly telling us about these unavoidable natural exposures as if this would make us more willing to be given cancer by our neighbours - whereas chemical regulation does not appeal to background radiation in justifying what is an acceptable level.
We live on a planet where it's deemed that roughly 3% or more of cancers are caused by natural background radiation, if you believe the risk coefficients of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. Too bad. We would all eliminate that 3% of cancers if we could, but I can't and you can't. So why does that enter into a discussion of what an acceptable risk of cancer is from the radioactive pollution that my neighbour, Ontario Hydro, puts into my drinking water, into this glass from Chalk River? Am I more willing to get cancer from this glass of water because cosmic rays are now passing through the roof and through my body? Maybe you are, but I'm not.
.1220
Mrs. Cowling: I'd just like to have some comments from the other group. I apologize, but I have to be in the House speaking at this point; however, I definitely will read your comments in the record.
Thank you ever so much.
Ms Reinsborough: From our own personal experience, we don't believe the Atomic Energy Control Board actually represented us in our affairs. We're therefore concerned that if you are a candy manufacturer and have all of the power - in fact, you are very powerful and you're a quasi-judicial candy manufacturer - you are going to bend sugar. So our concern is that on any commission like this, you have to have people who are as against it as the people you have who are for it.
There's nothing wrong in having checks and balances. That used to be viewed as a negative thing on any committee, but I sit on a committee for the chemical industry called CAER. Do you know why they invited me to sit on that committee? It's because I'm such a vocal member of my community and so involved in it. They wanted to know what the negative side of their industry was so that they could fix it, not hide it.
Mr. Silvester: Once again I don't know where to begin. I just have too many things to say here.
Why are we so strongly against what is proposed in Bill C-23? Entrenched in Bill C-23 is a variety of discretionary issues. There are a number of areas in which pet words are imprecisely defined. We believe this gives considerable leeway for interpretation by any given body, which in this case would be the AECB or the proposed commission. We unfortunately have not developed a trust for that group to engage in fair and impartial decisions. If that were the case, we probably wouldn't be here today.
We have considerable concerns about the ability of the individuals on this proposed commission or on the current AECB to construe the proposed legislation from an environmental health and safety standpoint. Rather, they lean more towards the so-called national security issues that are quite moot at this point. I have a background of reading the legislation - I have gone over it with a fine-toothed comb - and I can tell you point blank that I have a concern that it is chock-full of all sorts of loopholes that will be available to whoever happens to be in power to implement it.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Crawford.
Mr. Crawford (Kent): Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Thank you for your briefs. I hope I have time to go over them later, because there is a lot of good information there.
I'd like to ask Mr. Dassios a question or get an explanation from him. On page 2, it states:
- Section 49 makes it an offence not to report for duty at a nuclear facility despite the existence of
a legal strike or lockout. This draconian provision (aimed solely at workers, not employers) cuts
across labour relations law and should simply be deleted from the Bill.
.1225
Mr. Dassios: There have been shutdowns of nuclear plants during labour disputes and they've all been safe, to my knowledge.
The people who work at nuclear plants, particularly the operators, have special designations under the Atomic Energy Control Act that would be continued under the new legislation. These people are personally responsible for the operation of the facility, and they take that responsibility seriously.
There are already penalties built in for anybody who doesn't take it seriously and doesn't ensure a shutdown is safe. I can tell you that because I know these people. They take that responsibility seriously, to the point where it doesn't matter what the employer says to them, let alone the union or anybody else. They're in charge of the plant and the responsibility is on their shoulders to ensure it's safe. So there are already built-in protections.
Secondly, if there is some legitimate concern about safe shutdowns, that's what the section should deal with, not failure to report to work. It should deal with safe shutdowns. We'd be content with that.
Mr. Crawford: You all mentioned earlier that there are many loopholes within this bill, that there may be places where we should tighten it down more.
Mr. Dassios: In this case it would be focusing on the real issue. As opposed to trying to turn it into some regulation dealing with labour relations, it should deal with safe shutdowns. People should be responsible for safe shutdowns, regardless of whether there's a legal or an illegal labour dispute.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Solomon.
Mr. Solomon (Regina - Lumsden): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I represent a constituency in Saskatchewan, and Saskatchewan has, as you know, been a long-time province of uranium mining. The governments of the Hon. Allan Blakeney and the Hon. Roy Romanow have dealt with the uranium issue throughout the last 25 years. They have a very significant interest in terms of the environment and they have a very significant priority with respect to occupational health and safety legislation. In fact, in each of those areas they've exceeded the national standards as they have been applied by the AECB and other agencies with respect to uranium mining.
So I think a general comment would be that this bill, from the Saskatchewan government's perspective, is a step in the right direction, although probably not 100% as good as it could be.
My sense is that your presentations today - the three organizations you represent - provide a balance to our committee. We've seen and heard a lot of testimony from another perspective. This is lacking not only in our committee, but in Parliament as well.
That is just to give a little political picture on behalf of the NDP.
My two questions are to the CLC. You maintain that inspectors conducting site visits should always be accompanied by members of a joint workplace health and safety committee. Some people say that this requirement might result in inspection delays, reduced operating efficiencies, or increased regulatory costs, especially if the members of the committee are not always readily available. What would you say in response to that? Is that something that is a major concern?
Mr. Dassios: It is a major concern for the reasons I outlined, but I believe we say in the brief that every reasonable effort should be made to get the committee people there. It seems to me that at a certain point, if every reasonable effort has been made and the committee people don't show up, you can hardly blame the inspector for going ahead if there is some emergency with the inspection.
Mr. Solomon: The other question I had was a more general one. In your brief you support Bill C-23 in principle, yet you provide some good ideas with respect to possible amendments. If the amendments were not passed, would CLC still support this bill?
Mr. Dassios: I don't think the CLC would be caught answering such a hypothetical question.
Mr. Solomon: You don't have to answer it now, but maybe you could let us know afterward, once we go through the process in trying to get some amendments through the committee. Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a few questions for each of the presenters. I thank you all for coming. It's good to see my old friend Norm Rubin, whom I go back with nearly 20 years.
Mr. Rubin: A long time.
.1230
Mr. Reed: My first question would be for CORP. You mentioned more than once in your presentation an objective third party. I wonder if you could tell us who you would consider to be an objective third party.
Mr. Silvester: I'd be happy to. An objective third party would be a party independent of the body itself and of organization that created the body in the first place. It would oversee the day-to-day functioning of that body to ensure that it was in fact complying with what it was supposed to be doing, that it was entering into fair and impartial adjudication of certain areas that needed to be adjudicated upon.
I did mention that I thought Norm Rubin would be a superb person to have as such an objective third party. I named his group as a civilian watchdog group.
It could be in a variety of other forms.
I do believe there is a pervasive history of abuse and, unfortunately, inappropriate decision-making by the AECB. The history speaks for itself. It's ubiquitous.
Mr. Reed: I would have to follow with the question then - and this also for me is a bit of a difficulty - who would choose the independent third party?
Mr. Silvester: I think you probably would have a group of individuals who were regular civilians. I think you'd want a civilian group that met certain qualifications and was more or less apolitical. I think it would be tantamount to selecting a jury, but with a far less drawn-out process in that situation, that met certain criteria and was able to objectively assess a certain individual for their ability to be able to assess a situation objectively. I think that's what you'd be looking at.
Ms Reinsborough: May I add something to that? Furthermore, in the scheme of things, as it stands now, were you looking for a quicker fix than having a committee? I sat on OTAB and I know what it's like to get a committee to have a committee to have a committee. There are people who are identified by our community, and certainly Energy Probe is one of those groups, as people who represent people, like the people in our community. People who have already set themselves up and have worked hard to identify themselves that way would, in the opinion of the environmental groups, be good voices and good interveners for us.
I think you'd have to look to people who know something about the subject in order to fix it. You can't just go out into the community and say that people who have never been involved should suddenly make a decision as to who will represent us.
Certainly it should be a citizen watchdog, someone who has done their homework, who can make an impact, and who is approachable for the public. That's important, because right now we have no one looking after us.
Mr. Reed: I don't want to belabour this too much, as I know we have a bit of a time constraint here, but most people carry some baggage of one sort or another, even Energy Probe.
A voice: It's an imperfect world.
Mr. Reed: This is what I'm trying to get at. Are we dealing with the art of the possible here at all when it comes to...?
Ms Reinsborough: My response was whether or not you're carrying baggage that is anti-nuclear or pro-nuclear, there should be a place for those positions, because you're really trying to get people to give you all views, or you're trying to get people who say let's go for it, who don't want to hear anybody who's not for it.
If you have a committee, you need to have a group of people who are going to give you all views. If those views are strong, you have to deal with it within the committee. If you have a good chair, you can.
It's not a matter of whether you make up the committee with people who are all going to be in favour of the action. I think it has to be a committee that's representative of views. Certainly the view that is not represented anywhere in this bill is the view of communities that have to deal with issues like ours.
.1235
Mr. Reed: I have just one other quick question for you, Ms Reinsborough.
You use the word ``dump'' at Oakville, and that concerns me a great deal, because when I hear the word ``dump'', I see a big hole in the ground and stuff thrown into it. Is that what it is?
Ms Reinsborough: We've already been challenged on that. The Atomic Energy Control Board doesn't recognize the words ``way station'' any more than they recognize the word ``dump''. So if they can use ``way station'', we can use ``dump''.
Mr. Reed: Thanks very much.
Mr. Silvester: I just want to make one comment to your query earlier. That is that most of the decisions made have been driven by corporate political forces. We want to see that stopped once and for all. We're not going to be a party to decision-making based on political corporate decision-making or forces or pressures against certain bodies. We want to see that come to a halt, and we are going to be pushing for that very strongly.
Mr. Reed: Thank you.
Norm, I noticed in your presentation that you missed something that's a little bit close to my heart. There was a paragraph on the opening page about commenting on Ontario Hydro breaking up and giving electricity customers the chance to buy green. I was wondering if you could delineate what you mean by ``green'' and if you now endorse green energy.
Mr. Rubin: I think I've always endorsed what I consider green energy, that is, energy that's sustainably produced, preferably renewably and efficiently produced.
What I think is coming in the electricity markets of the progressive part of the world first - and I think Ontario may get it soon - is the power of customer choice, competition among providers for retail customers. I hope that comes soon. Energy Probe submissions to the Macdonald committee in Ontario, for example, have suggested that should come soon.
I was in Boston recently and I read in the newspapers about a trial that's going on in several cities and Boston, where six retail providers are competing with different packages for retail customers. Two or three of them are promoting some form of socially beneficial or environmentally beneficial power, combinations of renewables and high efficiencies, or donations to environmental NGOs from the profits. They are competing and are selling different things. Just as socially responsible mutual funds and labour funds have different kinds of packages, some appeal to different people, and so it should be.
I predict that if we get that kind of retail choice, for example in Ontario, it will drive the market, the demand for high-efficient electricity, for renewable electricity and for non-black electricity. I think there are people who will, for example, choose to buy whatever is cheapest that isn't coal or nuclear. I hope there will be providers who will be putting together packages like that - not perhaps the greenest but avoiding some of the nastiest.
I think that will drive the market for high-efficient and renewable forms of electricity much faster than any alternative I've heard of. I've heard suggestions for quotas, set-asides and a government fiat to say that you can't generate electricity unless you're renewable, or whatever, and I don't think any of those in the real world will drive the marketplace as fast as consumer choice.
Mr. Reed: I'm intrigued to know how we are going to split the grid up to do that.
Mr. Rubin: I think virtually everybody agrees that the grid is a natural monopoly, that the power pool, if we go with the power pool concept, as Energy Probe supports, is a natural monopoly, and that those monopolies have to be publicly regulated. There will be a brokerage, in effect a marketplace, for electricity that will have to be publicly regulated, as stock exchanges are.
.1240
Mr. Reed: Right now I can sell green but I can't buy green.
Mr. Rubin: No. In fact, you can't sell green in Ontario unless you're Ontario Hydro or unless you sell to Ontario Hydro. You can't sell it to me.
Mr. Reed: No, but I can sell it to Ontario Hydro.
Mr. Rubin: Yes, you can only sell it to Ontario Hydro.
Mr. Reed: That's right, or I can do it for myself.
Mr. Rubin: Right. Ontario Hydro isn't buying, so you can't sell if you're coming on the marketplace now. Too bad. You only have one buyer and they're not buying.
Mr. Reed: That's news to me, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rubin: Unless you already have a contract, you can't sell to Ontario Hydro.
Mr. Reed: My final question is for Mr. Dassios.
Of course, this bill deals with nuclear safety. You have expressed an objection on behalf of the Labour Congress to clause 49 because it gives the appearance of interfering in labour relations.
I think the public has a concern about the potential for the abandonment of a nuclear plant without an acceptable complement of staff to keep it operating. To take the converse, you have said there's a mechanism in place for shutting them down.
If we extrapolate the word ``safety''.... Across the province of Ontario, particularly with all the nuclear capacity in place now, I'm sure you can appreciate what would happen to public safety if there was a shutdown of those plants. The hydraulic system can keep running, which is a no-brainer. The fossil system can probably keep running with supervision, but the nuclear system does require a complement of staff to keep it operating.
It seems to me that the only other option to something like this would be to declare the generation of electric power an essential service.
Mr. Dassios: I disagree with that final statement. I don't disagree with the public having a perception about what you discussed. Also, I don't disagree that there's a connection between labour relations and safety.
All I'm saying is, why not focus on that and say there has to be a safe shutdown? Mirror it between employers and employees so that they're both on the hook in the same way rather than trying to get into withdrawal of labour, which is a loaded term. Why not focus on what the legitimate and real area of public concern is of whether there can be a safe shutdown?
If you think the employer doesn't need regulation on that ground, I would disagree with that as well. It was Ontario Hydro that, for no reason other than to put pressure on the government, started to shut down the nuclear plants earlier this year when the union was telling the employer it had no intention of going on strike or shutting down the nuclear plants. It was Ontario Hydro doing it. By their analysis, it would have brought down the grid and shut down power in the province. They were doing it, and it seems to me that has to be taken into account.
Mr. Reed: Don't you think that if such a clause were removed it would precipitate a response by, for instance, the Ontario government to do just as I said, to declare electric power generation an essential service? I don't know how many megawatts of installed capacity now are functioning.
Mr. Dassios: A lot.
Mr. Reed: It represents a plate rating of about two-thirds of the generation.
Mr. Dassios: It's about 60% of a generation.
Mr. Reed: It's maybe producing about 50% of the power, and that's a lot.
Mr. Dassios: Yes, it is a lot.
Mr. Reed: That represents supplies to hospitals, the transportation system - all those things that are necessary to public safety and well-being. Looking at it from this point of view, is clause 49 so offensive?
.1245
Mr. Dassios: The problem with clause 49 is it doesn't deal with the situation you're talking about. It doesn't prohibit a shutdown of the nuclear plants. It says it has to be done in accordance with a licence.
We don't know what the licence conditions will be. Currently the licence conditions are that there can't be work stoppage without reasonable notice being given. It doesn't deal with the issue of whether power can be shut down; it deals with the method as it currently is.
If it's dealing with the method of when people cannot show up for work, why not focus on the real issue, which is safe shutdown? The Ontario government is quite capable of preventing a lockout or a strike if it considers it to be in the public interest to prevent it. They've legislated people back before. In fact, Ontario Hydro was the first piece of back-to-work legislation that contained a mandatory arbitration clause several decades ago. They're quite capable of doing it.
This doesn't deal with that situation currently, but it purports to deal with labour relations in a situation where the real issue is a safe shutdown.
I thought when Energy Probe was talking about buying green, they were talking about buying energy with much more green than you're buying now, after Ontario Hydro is privatized. It's going to lead to increases in rates.
I disagree with much of what Mr. Rubin says about the privatization of Ontario Hydro, although I don't think anybody is of the view that competition would be a bad thing; it's the break-up and privatization of Ontario Hydro that would be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you.
To the witnesses, thank you very much for being here today. You're certainly adding to the perspective we've heard through our public hearings. We appreciate you taking the time to come down here. Thank you.
This meeting is adjourned.