nuclear-news

Blogpost by Shawn-Patrick Stensil – August 19, 2015 As Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is famous for his preoccupation with controlling the flow of information. When it comes to nuclear safety, however, this obsession with information control has transformed our supposedly-independent watchdog into a lapdog.A glaring example of this is the decision of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to suppress an accident study detailing risks to Toronto in the event of a major accident at the Darlington nuclear station, and order it re-written so as to smooth the project’s passage through the public hearings process. To protect Canadians, the next federal government needs to clean up the CNSC.

Greenpeace and other environment groups asked the Commission today to release a study censored by CNSC staff because it apparently reveals weaknesses of offsite emergency response around the Darlington nuclear station.

We learned the study had been suppressed by requesting documents under federal Access to Information legislation, but its cover-up fits with the Harper government’s ongoing attack on our democratic institutions.

For a decade now the Harper government has gagged scientists, intimidated independent government watchdogs, and gutted environmental protection laws.  All these attacks have a common objective: prevent the release of any information at odds with Harper’s goal of making Canada an energy “super power”.Whether it’s Alberta’s tar sands or Ontario and Saskatchewan’s nuclear industry, Harper’s endgame was to deny Canadians information that puts dirty power in a bad light.

The CNSC decision to suppress this public safety shows how much Harper’s succeeded.

One of Harper’s first attacks on arms-length watchdogs was when he fired the CNSC’s former president Linda Keen in 2008.

Keen was fired because she had the audacity to tell the Canadian nuclear industry they’d need to meet modern international nuclear safety standards if they wanted to build new reactors.

This angered the nuclear lobby, and especially the engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, who wanted to build new reactors on the cheap by cutting back on safety systems by building an outdated pre-Chernobyl, pre-September 11^th reactor design.

SNC-Lavalin set out to have Keen ousted and found a sympathetic ear with Harper.  Letting environmental protection block industry expansion is anathema to goals of the Harper government.  Harper fired Keen and installed a more industry-friendly president.

The new president Michael Binder quickly remade the Commission in Harper’s image.   The CNSC became an industry cheerleader with Binder even providing promotional quotes for industry press releases.

While the Harper government gutted environmental laws, Binder let it be known that environmental reviews would be little more than a foregone conclusion under his watch anyway.

And the muzzling of government scientists appears to be alive and well at the CNSC.

A 2014 Environics survey of federal scientists found CNSC staff often feel that politics trumps science at the Commission

CNSC scientists are the most likely (94%) to report “interference” with their manuscripts in the civil service. They are also the second most likely (57%) to be aware of incidents where the safety of Canadians had been compromised due to political interference.

The censored study we asked for today is a tangible example of how public safety assessments are being re-written for political ends.

In 2014, the CNSC released a severe accident study purportedly assessing the impacts of a “severe”accident at the Darlington nuclear station.

Such an assessment is needed because Ontario Power Generation (OPG) wants to extend the lives of four aging reactors at Darlington.   Sitting just 60 km from downtown Toronto the Darlington reactors are located in Canada’s densely populated. This raises questions about the ability of Canada’s largest city to cope with a major nuclear accident.

The public had also pushed for this study.  Following the Fukushima disaster hundreds of citizens called for such a study. It was a reasonable request.  Believe it or not, the CNSC has never studied the consequences of a major Fukushima-scale accident in Canada.

CNSC staff reluctantly relented and committed to produce an accident study before hearings on OPG’s application to rebuild the aging Darlington reactors later this year.

But eyebrows were raised when the CNSC finally published the promised study in 2014.  Media coverage focused on the study’s rather anti-intuitive conclusion:  a severe accident at Darlington would have a negligible impact on the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

I learned later the reason for the curious conclusion.   Senior CNSC management had suppressed the original study, which did look at a Fukushima-scale radiation release.

According to documents I received through Access to Information, senior CNSC management stopped the release of the original study when apprised of its findings.   They instructed staff to redo the study and exclude scenarios leading to a Fukushima-scale radiation release.

The justification to censor the study provided by CNSC Director Francois Rinfret shows how the CNSC has operationalized Harper’s policy of suppressing any evidence at odds with the expansion of major energy projects.

After Rinfret reviewed the study in early 2013, Rinfet told staff:

“I have taken a quick look at the draft submitted; indeed, this will become a focal point of any licence renewal, and despite brilliant attempts to caution readers, this document would be used malevolent-ly [sic] in a public hearing. It’s a no-win proposition whatever whatever (sic) we think the Commission requested.”

We were refused the details of the study, but Rinfret’s comments suggest the study reveals significant threats to public safety.

This makes sense.  Ontario’s nuclear emergency plans effectively pre-date Chernobyl.     Population is growing across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).   There are surely weaknesses, especially in light of Fukushima.

An independent watchdog mandated to protect public safety would publish the data and use the information to improve safety requirements.  But under Harper the CNSC is a lapdog with a mandate to protect the image and profits of the industry it regulates.

CNSC management were clearly concerned the study would be used to challenge the adequacy of the CNSC’s safety requirements.   Worse, the public could decide the Darlington life-extension just isn’t worth the risk.   Under the Harper regime, such inconvenient information is suppressed instead of being addressed by the government agencies.

We have nevertheless asked for the Commission to release the study.  If public safety is at risk, it must be released – and we all need to call for its release.

Whatever the Commission’s response, Harper has created a dangerous culture at the CNSC.  It puts Canadians at risk.

The public had good reason to ask for an assessment of the impacts of a Fukushima-type accident.   Accidents are happening about once a decade internationally, and we need to know if Toronto could cope with such an event at Darlington before OPG is allowed to spend billions rebuilding the station.

As became clear after the Fukushima disaster, Japan’s industry-friendly nuclear regulator was a key cause of the accident.

Under Harper’s watch, the CNSC has been transformed from a watchdog into a lapdog.  The parallels with Japan’s nuclear regulator before Fukushima are worrisome.

Let’s hope the next federal government cleans up the CNSC.

If you’d like to speak out against OPG’s proposal to rebuild the Darlington nuclear station, please sign-up here.