Community liaison forums

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission staff explain role and process at Community Liaison Forum

CNSC Overview (PDF 140 KB)
CNSC Process (PDF 101 KB)

August 21, 2006 — A presentation on the Canadian  Nuclear Safety Commission’s  role in Canada’s nuclear industry and a question and answer  session with the approximately 80 people in attendance was the focus of a community liaison forum held August 21st at the Port Hope Lions Recreation Centre.

Henry Rabski, Director of the commission’s processing and research facilities division and Pascale Bourassa from the commission’s secretariat were the guest speakers for the evening.

The idea of holding a forum featuring representatives of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) was one of the suggestions made by participants during the workshop portion of Cameco’s initial community liaison forum held in May. It was recommended that representatives of the commission be invited to Port Hope to explain both the commission’s role as the nuclear industry’s regulator and the public hearings the CNSC holds as part of the licence application process for facilities such as Cameco’s uranium conversion facility and Zircatec Precision Industries.

During his presentation to the August 21st forum, Henry Rabski gave a detailed overview of the CNSC’s history, its mandate and regulatory philosophy, as well as the commission’s regulatory and licensing process. He explained that the CNSC is an independent federal government agency and a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal. Under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act (NSCA), the commission’s mandate includes regulating the development, production use of nuclear energy in Canada, regulating the production, possession, use and transport of nuclear substances, implementing measures to respect Canada’s international commitments on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and distributing scientific, technical and regulatory information.

The next CNSC presenter to the forum, Pascale Bourassa, gave an overview on the role of the commission’s secretariat, provided details on how the CNSC’s public hearing process works and shared information on the criteria and steps for members of the public who wish to be involved in the CNSC’s public hearings for licensing decisions regarding the uranium conversion facility and Zircatec. She explained that there will be a two-day hearing process for Cameco’s conversion facility and Zircatec.  Hearing Day One for both licence applications will be held October 4th in Ottawa, when the applicants and CNSC staff present written and oral submissions. Hearing Day Two actually occurs over three days, November 28, 29 and 30th, in Port Hope. That’s when interested persons who had previously notified the CNSC that they would like their views formally heard can present written or oral submissions before the commission. Details of the information provided by Ms. Bourassa to those attending the forum are available on the CNSC website.  She also indicated that CNSC representatives will be in Port Hope on September 18th for an information drop-in session at the Port Hope library.

When they arrived for the forum, participants had the opportunity to pick up CNSC information packages and each person received a card on which they could write a question to be asked of the CNSC representatives following their presentations. During the question and answer portion of the evening over 20 questions were posed to Henry Rabski and Pascale Bourassa, either directly from members of the audience or from the question cards.

The questions covered a wide range of subjects and issues including emission standards, licensing conditions, the criteria for an environmental assessment for a re-licensing application and the role of provincial standards when emission limits are considered.

There were a number of questions related to the operation of the CNSC and its decision making process such as the CNSC’s budget, the role of its staff in making licensing recommendations to commission members, the impact of public input on the hearings, and the appeal process. The panel was asked about health studies, but Mr. Rabski replied that the need and expertise for health studies rests with Health Canada and not the CNSC.

During his remarks to open the forum, Bob Steane, vice-president of Cameco’s fuel services division, recapped the community forum process to date for those who were attending for the first time. Steane said that he recognized that the community forums were currently being held at a fairly quick pace, four since May and another currently being organized for October. “Our reason for doing this is to quickly establish and clearly signal our commitment to the community liaison forum process. As well, we want to share as much background information with the community in advance of the licensing hearings this fall,” Steane told the forum.

During his closing remarks, Steane expressed appreciation for the valuable feedback that Cameco has received by participants at the community forums. He said the follow-up forum on health scheduled for October 21st is a prime example.

“At the June forum on health, workshop participants felt the next forum on health should feature an expert panel and more time for discussion. That’s exactly what we are working on,” he said.

As a wrap up to the forum, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire in order to get feedback about the CNSC presentation and the question and answer session that followed. Participants were asked if there was any information they were looking for that they did not hear and if there was any other information they would like to know about as it relates to the regulatory process, such as how the CNSC standards are set and how they compare to other jurisdictions around the world.