nuclear-news

During Canada’s leaders’ debate, Carney praised a nuclear firm he bought while at Brookfield

Investment fund co-headed by Liberal leader acquired 51% of Westinghouse in 2023

Daniel Leblanc · CBC News ·Apr 17, 2025 

During the first leaders’ debate on Wednesday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney praised nuclear energy and named two companies in the sector with which he did business during his tenure at Brookfield Asset Management.

In 2023, Brookfield formed a partnership with uranium mining firm Cameco to purchase the Westinghouse Electric Company. Brookfield Asset Management acquired 51 per cent of Westinghouse while Cameco got the rest, according to a news release.

The purchase was made within the Brookfield Global Transition Fund, an investment fund that was co-headed by Carney at the time. He was an executive at Brookfield Asset Management from 2020 until early 2025, when he entered politics and became leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Canada.

During Wednesday’s French-language leaders’ debate, Carney praised nuclear energy in response to a question from host Patrice Roy. In Canada, nuclear energy falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government, which invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the sector earlier this year.

“It’s a great opportunity,” responded Carney, adding it’s up to the provinces to decide whether or not to invest in nuclear power.

“We have a great advantage here in Canada. We have uranium, that’s one of the advantages. We have major nuclear companies including CANDU, Westinghouse and Cameco,” he said.

Carney then began talking about “small” modular reactor technology in which several firms including Westinghouse are active, but he was interrupted. 

According to documents made public by Brookfield Asset Management, as of Dec. 31, Carney had stock options in the firm worth $6.8 million US.

Carney has repeatedly explained that he co-operated with the ethics commissioner when he entered politics to establish a blind trust to hold all of his assets except cash and his personal real estate holdings. In addition, Carney established anti-conflict of interest screens as prime minister to avoid intervening in matters affecting Brookfield.

Carney facing calls for more transparency

Political scientist Geneviève Tellier said she wonders whether some of Carney’s assets are still linked to his time at Brookfield, adding a clear answer should be provided before the federal election on April 28.

“To directly mention companies in a leaders’ debate, when he perhaps has interests in these companies or has benefited from these companies, I think that raises major ethical questions,” the University of Ottawa professor said. 

“I understand the law does not require it, but morally and for the sake of transparency, we should have more information.”…………………………………

In a written statement issued Thursday, Conservative MP Michael Barrett criticized the Liberal leader’s failure to disclose whether or not he has an ongoing financial interest in Brookfield.

According to the Conservatives, Carney’s response during the debate was designed to “promote” nuclear energy and Westinghouse.

“If Westinghouse was to rake in billions of Canadian tax dollars, Mark Carney would almost certainly benefit financially,” Barrett said.

“[He] should come clean now and disclose all his assets and conflicts of interest before Canadians go to vote. If Carney has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide, he should have no problem doing so.” https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/during-leaders-debate-carney-praised-a-nuclear-firm-he-bought-while-at-brookfield-1.7513169

April 19, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Canada’s Liberal energy plan: more corporate, less climate?

Winnipeg Free Press, By: Anne Lindsey,  Apr. 16, 2025

In this “flag-waving” moment, where the U.S. government is threatening our sovereignty and economic well-being, it now appears the federal election is the Liberals’ to lose.

Amid the hype and adulation for Liberal Leader Mark Carney, however, the Liberals are promoting ideas that merit a closer look. Not least their plan to “make Canada the world’s leading energy superpower” announced in Calgary on April 9.

On the surface, it looks like the perfect recipe for self-reliance in energy and building a stronger Canada. It’s an industrial development strategy meant to exploit our natural mineral resources, build needed infrastructure and create jobs.

But what kind of energy and infrastructure?  The plan includes many welcome and essential commitments to reducing emissions: investment in zero-emission vehicles, developing battery and smart grid technologies, reducing methane, and references to our “clean energy advantage.”…………..

The “clean energy advantage” is not well defined…………………..

Why? Nuclear is a controversial energy technology, for good reason. It seems inevitable that nuclear power will play a starring role in Canada’s energy future but not one the Liberals want to highlight.

Nuclear’s proponents might be winning the semantic battle branding it as “clean,” despite its routine operations releasing a cocktail of radioactive substances, its waste products containing among the most dangerous elements on the planet, and its inextricable link to the manufacture and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Federal Liberals (and for that matter, Conservatives) have always been pro-nuclear, even though no nuclear plants have been built in Canada for decades. The annual federal expenditure on Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is more than $1 billion, due in no small part to the massive liabilities of managing nuclear waste. Tax credits for nuclear companies already abound.

Just this year, in the month of March alone, the current Liberal government committed another nearly half a billion dollars to a variety of nuclear projects across the country. The plan may not talk, but money does.

Mark Carney himself, a former UN special envoy on climate change and finance, has said there is “no path to net zero without nuclear.” In 2022, he joined Brookfield Asset Management, a firm holding both renewable energy and nuclear portfolios that, together with uranium giant Cameco, purchased bankrupt reactor company Westinghouse, under his watch. No question that Carney has a strong pro-nuclear bent.

More nuclear energy is an inappropriate climate action response, for at least two reasons. First, reactors take decades to be licensed, constructed and connected to the grid. And that’s a luxury we can’t afford.

Business as usual while waiting for nuclear power to get online means we surpass the tipping points of global warming, a scenario we must avoid.

Second, nuclear is the costliest way to generate electricity. Studies by organizations from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance to Lazard show that nuclear is not competitive with renewable alternatives which continue to drop in price. As governments fund nuclear, there is a massive lost opportunity cost for developing cheaper and readily available renewable energy.

Nuclear is too slow and too expensive to address climate change. The IPCC shows nuclear to be inefficient in reducing emissions. This is not an ideological perspective. It is fact.

Besides, “new generation” reactors being touted in Canada (such as GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300) carry a massive political liability, given current world events: most are American designs and all require enriched uranium fuel fabricated outside Canada.

Hardly a prescription for self-sufficiency. It’s a bit mysterious why “nuclear” does not appear in Liberal election plans while getting so much government (Liberal and Conservative) attention and money — unless we recognize the essential role of civilian nuclear infrastructure in maintaining weapons of mass destruction. Canada was instrumental in building the first atomic bombs and remains central to today’s U.S. defence/weapons supply chains for critical minerals, including uranium. Let’s keep that in mind as leaders negotiate trade and tariffs.

Canada should define itself not by becoming an “energy superpower” in the conventional and nuclear sense, but by disengaging from the defence industrial complex. We should use our critical minerals, ingenuity and workforce to pursue a decentralized, affordable, locally based renewable energy infrastructure leaning heavily into building and transportation efficiencies. We need to work together with Indigenous and remote communities, fully understand environmental and social impacts of developments and create smart grid interconnections that allow for maximum flexibility in energy sharing within Canada.

Anne Lindsey volunteers with the No Nukes MB campaign of the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition and has been monitoring nuclear waste since the 1980s. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2025/04/16/the-liberal-energy-plan-more-corporate-less-climate

April 19, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics | Leave a comment