MP Gallant Welcomes Chalk River Employees to Ottawa

March 26, 2010

Photo: L to R Dr. Daniel Banks, Gordon Tapp prepare as witnesses with MP Cheryl Gallant


Ottawa, Ontario… Cheryl Gallant MP, Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, was pleased to welcome members of CREATE, (Chalk River Employees Ad hoc TaskforcE for a national laboratory), to appear before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to present their vision for a “renewed culture of innovation and excellence” at the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL).

“It was my pleasure to welcome Dr. Daniel Banks, an individual who works at the Chalk River Laboratories, as well as Mr. Gordon Tapp, President of Chalk River Technicians and Technologists Independent Union at Chalk River, to appear before our Standing Committee, representing our local CREATE group,” said Cheryl Gallant, MP. 

“The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources is undertaking a study on the status of the NRU Reactor at Chalk River as well as the supply of medical isotopes. I was pleased to recommend that CREATE appear before our Parliamentary Committee. CREATE has done an outstanding job in soliciting local opinion and presenting that vision,” observed MP Gallant.

“More importantly, CREATE has stepped forward in a positive way to make constructive suggestions in an intelligent manner. The vision of a National Laboratory is something new and easily mis-understood. To their credit, our local people remain focused on the issue at hand and only on the facts,” said Cheryl Gallant, MP. “They understand that in the interest of proper planning and decision making there is a logical process to be followed.”

“Now, it is extremely important that our local community, including area politicians, get behind the CREATE vision. Only by working together, will we have any hope of making this vision a reality and share the jobs and benefits that will come with a re-vitalized Chalk River Laboratory, concluded MP Gallant.

Standing Committee on Natural Resources March 25, 2010 (unofficial Hansard):
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Conservative): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through you, to our witnesses.
 
I was most interested in hearing how the project through CREATE and the TRIUMF project are more complementary than in competition. Now I better understand that TRIUMF's focus is the medical community, whereas the multi-purpose reactor, yes it can make isotopes—it was never intended to—and does it very well, but it also services the nuclear industry as well as material science. It was through that general science that we spun off a whole new industry, which is spinning off different science that we're seeing at TRIUMF, not only in aeronautics, but we've seen bubble technologies, all the jobs there, as well as the new materials that will give rise to the yet unanticipated jobs of the future.

There seems to be a tendency for people to be distracted with the unproven technologies like the MAPLEs. Have you actually seen this business model? You're talking more than just about a multi-purpose reactor from the CREATE standpoint. You're talking about an entire national laboratory with that as the first piece of the puzzle, so to speak. We did have the particle accelerator, but that was left by the wayside, and would have complemented it. Have you seen the model in existence, and if so, can you tell us whether or not it's successful and how it's working?

Dr. Daniel Banks: When we were considering the model that we propose we did look at some other facilities. Gord was actually able to go down and visit Oak Ridge recently.
 
One of the models that we looked at was actually on the smaller scale, the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre at Chalk River which is an exception to Chalk River as a whole. The Canadian Neutron Beam Centre is operated by the National Research Council as opposed to AECL, so understandably it has a different mission. Its mission is to be a national science facility.

The model there is roughly 60% direct support from the National Research Council and 40% is revenue. That revenue comes from two streams. One is from industry, because industry pay cost recovery fees for their access to the neutron beams in order to get information about industrial components that they need for their business. It could an airplane turbine. It could be steel that's going to be used in bridges. The Challenger Space Shuttle is a famous example. They sent a piece of that to Chalk River for analysis. In addition to revenue from industry for proprietary research, there is academic research. NSERC pays a significant portion as well in order to maintain the facility in a state of readiness for access by scientists from universities all across Canada. External sources such as universities all across Canada and industries and other government research programs use 80% of the beam time.

Scaling that up to Chalk River we think that 60%-40% model is probably still reasonable. There would be a heavy weight toward the industrial side of that revenue. As an example, a representative of Areva testified at this committee not too long ago. I remember him saying that they spent $1.2 billion last year alone on research and development. The nuclear and research and development market is a big area. By opening up the lab to business from other industries besides the current CANDU business of AECL, there is certainly a lot of revenue that could be generated.

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Banks.
Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

Opposition MP, Lib: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My question is for CREATE. I just want clarification on your organization and on your involvement in creating this group. When you created this group, did you receive any assistance from politicians or political parties? Could you elaborate a bit on the process of how this group was created, please?


Dr. Daniel Banks: Actually, Gord was more involved at the inception, so I'd like him to comment on it.

Mr. Gordon Tapp: Thank you.

My name's Gordon Tapp. I'm sort of unofficial spokesperson for the Create Team. I was present when Ms. Raitt made her announcement about the restructure of AECL in Mississauga in May of last year and a lot of uncertainty, of course, among the employees popped up.

I'm also President of Chalk River Technicians and Technologists Independent Union up at Chalk River. At that time we also had some people down at Sheridan Park. In order to allay a lot of concerns about the future of the two paths that are going to be taken by the AECL pieces, that CANDU part and Sheridan Park and the research part that was typically in Chalk River, I approached our local MP in Renfrew County, Mrs. Cheryl Gallant, if she could address the employees up at Chalk River about NRCan's future plans.

A lot of us have seen changes at AECL over the past 20 years and we wanted to address those changes as well at the same time. A lot of us had a vision of what the future could be and it was suggested to us by Mrs. Gallant that if our voices are to be heard, we should do something on our own.
So at that time several interested persons from AECL or from the Chalk River site got together, including retired employees and we formed this committee. So to directly answer your question, did we did get any help? The answer is no. I did supply some--

Opposition MP: I appreciate the clarification.  There is a follow up question I had with respect to a question that my colleague, Mr. Regan, raised in committee before the minister a few days ago. He questioned the minister in saying that in the 2010 budget was any money set aside for the groundwork for a new research reactor at Chalk River and the minister clearly said no to that. There was no hesitation on the minister's part.
What's your reaction to that and what is your response, of course, to that news.

The Chair: Go ahead, Dr. Banks.

Dr. Daniel Banks: Well, it's certain that beginning the planning process toward a new multipurpose reactor would require a significant amount of funds. I don't know that we've actually seen the details of all of that money and how it's going to be used and whether any of that could be directed toward the planning process. It's not that we're looking for $1 billion in the budget now, because if the reactor cost that much we'll only know after some initial planning is done just to design the facility and see what it would cost in the end. That will depend on the design primers that you put in.
I'm not disappointed that we haven't seen a $1 billion allocation at this point because in the interest of proper planning and decision-making, that wouldn't be the next step.