{"id":339385,"date":"2025-12-12T01:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T01:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339385\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T01:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T01:28:09","slug":"american-owned-consortium-assumes-control-of-canadas-premier-nuclear-research-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339385\/","title":{"rendered":"American-owned consortium assumes control of Canada\u2019s premier nuclear research facility"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., in December, 2007. The consortium’s responsibilities will include modernizing the facilities at Chalk River Laboratories.FRED CHARTRAND\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

An American-owned consortium has assumed responsibility for managing Canada\u2019s premier nuclear research facility, Chalk River Laboratories, along with cleaning up the federal government\u2019s sizable inventory of radioactive waste spread across the country. <\/p>\n

After a three-month delay, Nuclear Laboratory Partners of Canada Inc. formally took control on Thursday of the organization that runs Chalk River, known as Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. <\/p>\n

CNL manages the assets and liabilities of a federal Crown corporation called Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. under an arrangement Ottawa describes as a \u201cgovernment-owned, contractor-operated\u201d model.<\/p>\n

Dating from the 1940s, Chalk River Laboratories is Canada\u2019s largest science and technology research compound. It served as the birthplace of Canada\u2019s Candu power reactor and conducted much of the nation\u2019s work on medical isotopes, and stores much of the federal government\u2019s extensive collection of radioactive waste.<\/p>\n

New leaders take charge of cleaning up Canada\u2019s most contaminated nuclear sites. Can they reduce federal liabilities?<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, AECL said the consortium\u2019s contract is worth about $1.2-billion annually. It has been called the federal government\u2019s largest contract<\/a> at the moment, although key federal authorities \u2013 including the Treasury Board Secretariat, Auditor-General and AECL \u2013 have been unwilling or unable to confirm that. The term of the contract will be six years but it can be extended for up to another 14 years.<\/p>\n

The consortium\u2019s American ownership has provoked controversy. Since assuming office, Prime Minister Mark Carney has espoused a Buy Canadian policy \u2013 a key part of his government\u2019s response to mounting conflict with its dominant trading partner, the United States. <\/p>\n

Corey Tochor, a Conservative member of Parliament for Saskatoon-University, accused AECL of \u201cselling out our nuclear secrets\u201d to American interests, during the first of three scheduled hearings held before the House of Commons standing committee on natural resources to examine the consortium\u2019s American ownership. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have real deep concerns [about] is that we\u2019re letting a foreign country manage our medical isotopes,\u201d Mr. Tochor said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke characterized the awarded contract as an \u201celbows-down\u201d approach that left Americans in control of Canadian intellectual property. <\/p>\n

AECL president and chief executive Fred Dermarkar said he had no concerns about the U.S. ownership. He told the committee that the government-owned, contractor-operated model was introduced in 2015 specifically to tap American talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept was that the U.S. had extensive expertise, owing to their vast experience in nuclear waste management, and lab operations at the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s 17 nuclear labs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a particular project that\u2019s going on that has a particularly unique aspect to it, those parent companies can reach back into their stable of expertise and experience, and bring those resources to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Chalk River is considered Canada\u2019s premier nuclear research facility. Government officials say the consortium\u2019s leadership will be based in Canada.Canadian Nuclear Labratories\/Supplied<\/p>\n

The American-owned consortium is led by a large nuclear specialty manufacturer focused on military equipment and nuclear fuel called BWX Technologies Inc. It also performs nuclear site restoration work and holds a large U.S. government contract to perform environmental work at Hanford, a decommissioned nuclear production complex in the state of Washington. (BWXT has 1,900 employees in Canada.)<\/p>\n

The consortium also includes BWXT\u2019s recently acquired Canadian subsidiary Kinectrics Inc., along with Virginia-based Amentum Environment & Energy Inc. Another organization, Battelle Memorial Institute, based in Ohio, has been described as a \u201ckey subcontractor.\u201d <\/p>\n

The consortium\u2019s responsibilities include modernizing Chalk River\u2019s facilities and decontaminating and demolishing old buildings. It must also manage AECL\u2019s collection of long-retired research and demonstration nuclear reactors and radioactive waste stored temporarily across the country, including the decommissioning of defunct facilities such as Whiteshell Laboratories in Manitoba. <\/p>\n

CNL shut down its only research reactor in 2018, leaving a major gap in Chalk River\u2019s research capabilities. CNL and AECL are considering options to acquire a new one.<\/p>\n

The U.S.-led consortium takes over from another partnership known as Canadian National Energy Alliance, which held the contract for a decade. Its members recently included Montreal-based AtkinsR\u00e9alis Group Inc. and two American companies, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and Fluor Corp. <\/p>\n

Government officials have said that the procurement of the contract was conducted by AECL, independently of Ottawa, and that the consortium\u2019s leadership will be based in Canada. <\/p>\n

The American consortium was declared the winner of a competitive procurement process in June and had originally been scheduled to take over in September. The transfer was delayed pending a review by the Competition Bureau, which is responsible for enforcing federal antitrust rules. Late last month the Competition Bureau issued a \u201cno-action letter\u201d confirming it will not oppose the contract, which allowed the transfer to proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., in December, 2007. The consortium’s responsibilities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-339385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}