Funding Deficiencies, Safety Concerns, Political Developments
NRU safety concerns created a political firestorm in December 2007. AECL extended a planned maintenance outage to complete the installation of safety upgrades, after the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) confirmed that AECL was out of compliance with its operating licence (granted by the CNSC in August 2006) by not having these safety upgrades completed. It became clear that a misunderstanding had taken place between AECL and the CNSC regarding whether the completion of these safety upgrades was, in fact, a licence condition in the first place. The misunderstanding was partly due to the fact that several communications between AECL and the CSNC in the time period 2005-2007 accurately describe the incomplete nature of the safety upgrades, up to and after the granting of the August 2006 licence.
The one-month shutdown of NRU created a shortage of medical radioisotopes; Canada produces about 40 percent of the world's supply. Parliament passed emergency legislation, winning all-party support, to order the reactor to be restarted, and NRU resumed operations on December 16, 2007.
Subsequently, federal Conservative Energy and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn indicated in a letter that he wished to fire CNSC chair Linda Keen over the matter. The Ottawa Citizen obtained and published Lunn's letter to Keen on January 8, 2008. Keen responded by going public with her own criticism of Lunn, publishing a letter on CNSC's website on January 9. Canadian media further developed the story.
Under the Financial Administration Act, AECL and other federal Crown corporations are subject to a special examination by the Auditor General of Canada once every five years. In September 2007, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada submitted a special examination report to AECL's board of directors, indicating also that the report would be provided to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, who oversees AECL at the political level. Fraser's report pinpointed serious government funding deficiencies for AECL, which had held back necessary expansion, upgrading, and replacement of its facilities. Opposition politicians defended Keen, called for Lunn to be fired, and for the report to be made public (Auditor-General's report identified 'deficiency' at AECL, by Juliet O'Neill, The National Post, January 10, 2008, p. A1).
Prime Minister Stephen Harper backed Lunn, (http://www.theglobeandmail.com, January 10, 2008). and Linda Keen was dismissed as chair of the CNSC at 10pm Tuesday January 15 – 12 hours before she was to appear before a Commons committee. She remains a member of the CNSC board. EdmontonSun, CBC News
On January 29, 2008, the former President of the CNSC, Linda Keen, testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the risk of fuel failure in the NRU reactor was "1 in 1000", and claimed this risk to be a thousand times greater than the "international standard of 1 in one million". These claims are refuted by AECL.
On May 15, 2009, AECL shut down the Chalk River facility to repair heavy water leaks that occurred after a power outage. The shutdown is causing a shortage of medical radioisotopes.
On May 28, 2009 the Harper government announced that they intend to separate out and privatize part of AECL's reactor design assets.
On June 2, 2009, secret government documents on AECL were revealed by CTV news. In the documents it was revealed that the government had spent $1.7 billion on AECL since 2006; that $100 million had been requested by AECL in supplementary funding to keep it solvent and that refurbishment of the Bruce nuclear reactors is "far behind schedule". "Bruce 1 is 324 days late" and "Bruce 2 reactor 433 days late."
On June 10, 2009, Prime Minister Harper announced that Canada will "eventually...be out of the business" of medical isotope production.
On 17 Dec, 2009, Natural Resources Canada Minister Lisa Raitt formally announced the offering of AECL's CANDU engineering division for private investment.
Read more about this topic: Atomic Energy Of Canada Limited
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