Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 22 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 21, 2000
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 9:00 a.m. to examine issues relating to energy, the environment and natural resources generally in Canada (Nuclear Reactor Safety).
Senator Mira Spivak (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Our first witness this morning is the President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Dr. Rosalie Bertell. Dr. Bertell, please proceed with your presentation. I am sure that the honourable senators will have questions following your presentation.
Dr. Rosalie Bertell, President, International Institute of Concern for Public Health: First of all I will give you my background. I have a Ph.D. in mathematics, with applications in biomedical and biological sciences. I have been working in radiation-related epidemiology for 30 years, mostly on low-level radiation. My original research was on medical diagnostic X-rays, after which I moved to nuclear power facilities and uranium mining and from there to the military.
Often people go in the other direction: they look first at the nuclear bomb, which seems very big, and then move down to smaller radiation. Having done it the other way, I probably have more expertise in the low doses of radiation, which are characteristic of pollution, occupational health and medical uses of X-ray.
X-rays and gamma rays can go through matter. Most of us are aware of medical X-rays, which go through the body and create an image on a plate. However, there are elements that periodically explode and release alpha and beta particles, which can ionize matter. This is a different problem. It is an explosion that can damage cells if it takes place inside the body. It is not quite the same as the rays that pass through the body, which can also damage cells.
In science we try to understand what is happening when you increase the dose. Intuitively you know that if the dose increases the damage is going to increase. The difficulty with ionizing radiation is that you are not dealing with a simple curve; instead, you are dealing with two different curves that intersect. The body has the ability to do some repair, and what you have is the damage curve, which generally increases until you kill the cells. The reason ionizing radiation stops doing damage is that the cells die and therefore the damage does not count.
You also have a repair curve. The repair curve does not start with the immediate insult with ionizing radiation. It cuts in after you have some damage. Then you have repair cutting in and then the damage overwhelms the repair mechanism. That is what gives you such a complicated curve.
The cumulative curve is next. If you were exposing people to radiation, you would see an increase in damage and then a plateau where the repair was taking place, and those reach a certain equilibrium. Then when damage overcomes the repair mechanism, you get another increase. Where the curve bends again is where cell death occurs.
In order to create a cancer, the cell has to be alive and able to reproduce, so it is only in a small range that you get the cancer effect. Once you get too much radiation, you kill a cell or you sterilize it, you do not get cancer. That is why it can be used for cancer therapy. You are killing the cells, and therefore not causing more cancer. Radiation therapy is like surgery: you are killing cells.
This makes the discussion of ionizing radiation difficult, because some researchers will look only at that period where you have a plateau and they will say that there is no effect. That is not true; there is quite an effect before that, before the cell repair mechanism is turned on.
Here is the history. Medical X-ray was discovered in 1895 by Roentgen. Within the first five years, it became imperative for physicians to use X-ray. In fact, it was said that to do surgery without an X-ray was unethical. By as early as 1912, the first book appeared showing that X-ray caused cancer. That was understood pretty early on. However, the regulations for radiation were not based on cancer until 1950. Before 1950 they were based on skin burn: unless somebody had a burn, there was no overdose of X-ray. I have more detail on that in the briefing notes.
Finally, by 1950, we had the physicists from World War II who had given us the atomic bomb. They were from Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. They wanted a radiation protection standard that would be promulgated internationally. At the time, the three countries had different radiation protection regulations.
Those physicists met between 1945 and 1950. In 1950, they went to the radiologists and asked to join their group to form what is now called the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP. They said they would never restrict medical X-ray, but they wanted to jointly make the radiation protection standard.
This group is not a scientific body in the usual sense, where scientific groups can put someone on a commission. Nobody can put someone on the IRCP, not even the World Health Organization. It is a self-constituted body; those scientists made themselves an organization. It is also self-perpetuating; in order to get on the ICRP, you have to be proposed by a current member and accepted by the current executive committee. This "in group" has been self-perpetuating since 1950. There are 13 men, and they are the ones who make the radiation protection standards that are followed in Canada. The makeup of the commission has been about 50 per cent physicists, about 10 per cent medical radiologists, about 25 per cent medical administrators and ministers of health from nuclear nations, and about 10 per cent other users of radiation.
In other words, the regulations are coming to us from the people using radiation, and those people are basically protecting themselves. They set the occupational standards. There is not and has never been an oncologist, someone trained in cancer, on the IRCP. The commission has never had an epidemiologist. It does not have public health doctors. It does not have occupational health physicists. It is the user community, not the community that deals with the health effects, that is setting the regulations.
Also, I think you have to know the nature of the regulations. We are used to the cut-off below which it is safe to be exposed and above which it is hazardous. That is the kind of regulation we are used to. However, the regulation for ionizing radiation does not have such a cut-off. Instead, there is what is called a risk benefit trade-off. While the IRCP admits that there is no cut-off below which ionizing radiation is safe, the commission says that we accept the health effect, given the benefit of the activity.
The overriding activity that has always been used as the basis for the regulation is the nuclear weapons industry. The production, deployment and testing of nuclear weapons have to fit within radiation protection standards, although the same standards are used for nuclear power and for hospitals. So, since 1950, the dominating factor in setting standards has been the bottom, and it makes the situation very difficult when people interpret those standards as safe.
For example, a worker in the nuclear power industry could develop cancer, and the worker compensation court will ask if that worker was ever overexposed. From a scientific point of view, that makes no difference, because you can get cancer within the regulations, and we expect cancers within the regulations. But in a court situation, radiation is treated as if it were safe below a certain cut-off, and that is unfair.
The situation is similar with respect to polluting industries in neighbourhoods. Often people in the residential areas around polluting industries will complain, and they are told that the radiation is well within the safe limits. That also is not a genuine argument, because the cut-off is a risk benefit cut-off, not a sign of safety.
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation recently made an estimate of the global effect of the nuclear industry. It studied the global dose of radiation people have received from the production of weapons and the testing of weapons. The atmospheric testing was really horrendous and we are still feeling the effect on the people born in the 1950s and 1960s. However, looking at that, you can begin to estimate how many people have cancer. I use the word "victims" broadly. I use the term "cancer deaths," which is the term the industry uses, but I include cancers that are not fatal. I eliminate skin cancer, because skin cancer is less horrendous than the other cancers. I include all cancers, whether fatal or not, except skin cancer.
I also include the genetic effects of radiation. Although the industry does not include what is called teratogenic, which is damage to the embryo or fetus in utero, I also include that. Everybody knows radiation does damage to a developing fetus or embryo. However, the nuclear industry takes the point of view that they are not yet citizens, so the state has no responsibility for the embryo or fetus. Therefore, that damage is not counted. I use the industry cut-off of not counting spontaneous abortions and stillbirths, although those are also caused by radiation. The nuclear industry does not count spontaneous abortions and stillbirths because they do not cost money to society, and the industry uses an economic approach.
Using very conservative numbers, just from the military nuclear industry, you get 484 million fatal cancers. That is the number you would get from the industry using the United Nations' estimate of dose and the industry's estimate of the radiation exposure. I am talking about close to 500 million cancer deaths caused just by the weapons industry.
Senator Taylor: If I may, I will ask a question before you leave this area. Have you done any research into the rate of cancer deaths in the population that was not in weapons testing, not in the military?
Dr. Bertell: I am referring to the general population of the whole world, not only military men. You see, the whole world was blanketed with the fallout.
Senator Taylor: You cannot say that every cancer in the world is due to fallout.
Dr. Bertell: No. This is the number of cancers you expect to cause, depending on the dose of radiation you have given people.
Senator Taylor: I do not know if I am following you. You say 500 million people.
Dr. Bertell: I said that 500 million people have developed cancer, given the dose of radiation from the above-ground weapons testing, from the uranium mining and milling and all the debris, and from major military accidents that have released radiation into the air or the water.
Senator Taylor: Then how many people have died from cancer that had no association with any of those causes?
Dr. Bertell: Obviously a huge number, but that does not take away from the cause.
Senator Taylor: I am just trying to get something to compare your numbers with. If 3 billion people have died from cancers not associated with radiation, then 500 million radiation-related cancer deaths does not look big. On the other hand, if there have been 400 million deaths from cancers not associated with radiation, then 500 million radiation-related cancer deaths does look big.
Dr. Bertell: Everybody is going to die, so 100 per cent are going to die.
Senator Taylor: I just want to understand the graph.
The Chairman: Dr. Bertell, you can see that there are many questions. Perhaps you could speed up your presentation. Senator Taylor, you have the graphs here; you can ask the question as soon as the witness is through.
Dr. Bertell: You have to remember that when we are talking about cancer deaths that are artificially caused, we are talking about premature deaths. Those can be of children, young adults and so on. Everybody is going to die, but we are talking about premature deaths.
From nuclear power and civilian accidents, there are about 7.2 million fatal cancers. That is a global figure.
The next slide shows numbers that would be admitted by the nuclear industry. I expanded these categories to include genetic effects and teratogenic effects or damage in utero, which brings the numbers up. These categories are even higher. You are into the billions here -- 2.3 billion victims. That is a huge number. The victims are very hard to find. It is very hard to say that one individual is or is not a victim, because these effects also happen due to natural background radiation, for example.
Now that the Cold War is over, we must ask some hard questions. Regarding the risk benefit trade-off: Are 2.3 billion victims too many? I think we need policy and legislation that would differentiate risk benefit standards from standards that are truly safe. It is not fair to the public and it is not fair to the worker to act as if the standard were a safety standard when it is not. The standard is a risk benefit trade-off.
The risk benefit must be totally reconsidered in view of the end of the Cold War. I think the protection of civilians by buffer zones around polluting nuclear industries is very important. There are many industries that are not exactly nuclear power plants -- uranium mining and milling, for example. There is a factory in Toronto that makes the fuel rods for the CANDU reactors. That one is right in the middle of the city centre. There is another factory in Peterborough. There is a tritium plant in Pembroke that is polluting right in the middle of a residential area. There must be buffer zones around those places. The standards must be completely reconsidered. They are not safe and they should not be treated as safe.
Senator Christensen: Thank you for your presentation. In your brief, you elaborate quite extensively on the risk benefit trade-offs. In nuclear power generation, do you feel that there is any level of exposure to ionizing radiation below which no harm would occur?
Dr. Bertell: No.
Senator Christensen: It is not acceptable in any degree?
Dr. Bertell: No. Let me tell you why. We know how to measure the amount of energy needed to break DNA. These are chemical bonds. The amount of energy required to break a chemical bond of this nature is between 6 and 10 electron volts. The energy from the radiation emitted from a nuclear plant is in the thousand to million volts. There are kilo electron volts or mega electron volts. You have more than enough energy in just one nuclear event, one nuclear transformation, to break DNA.
The only question is whether the DNA is within range of this energy. For example, if the nuclear event were over here on a table, it would not be damaging my DNA if it were alpha or beta particles, but if I ingest it or inhale it and it is inside the body, then there is 100 per cent probability it will damage these large molecules. That is why we say there is no safe level. A spontaneous explosion on a microscopic level will cause damage.
Senator Christensen: We are talking about risks and benefits in the development of nuclear power. Do you see any benefits that outweigh the risks to the population in the development of nuclear power?
Dr. Bertell: I do not, given the present radiation protection standards, which were set by the military during above-ground weapons testing. I think the current nuclear energy could break at tighter standards but they are going to have to change their heads. You are dealing mostly with engineers. Engineers do not question the regulations; they try to stay within them, and they are very happy with themselves. They believe they have created an industry and they stay within the permissible levels of radiation. They are very proud of their accomplishment.
Many of the systems are going to require redesigning if those regulations are changed and lowered. I do not know whether or not they can do that, but from a public health standpoint, the current system is not acceptable.
Senator Christensen: Do you believe it is possible to operate without any changes?
Dr. Bertell: That is an engineering question and I am not an engineer. They must answer that, but because the current regulations are too high by maybe a factor of 10,000, we are not talking about small changes.
The Department of Health in Minnesota decided it wanted to treat the chemical industry and the nuclear power plants in an even-handed way. It did so on the basis of how many cancer cases would be caused by the pollution from the industry. It set standards for disposal of radioactive waste. In the U.S., they are allowed 500 millirem exposure to the public per year. That would be 5 millisieverts in Canada. There are two different ways of counting it. Instead of 500 millirem, they have 0.05 millirem as their standard. That is a factor of 10,000 lower.
Given the new standards just implemented in Canada, the standard used in Minnesota is 2,000 times lower. Therefore, we are not talking about just moving it a little; we are talking about a major reduction in the standards.
Senator Taylor: You have done a terrific amount of work in putting all of this together. By the way, I am an engineer. I will admit that if somebody asked an engineer to build a road through Paris, he would go right through the Louvre.
Dr. Bertell: I used to teach calculus to engineers.
Senator Taylor: I am trying to get a handle on the size of the problem, going back to that number of 484 million dying of cancer from military nuclear activities. If they were not in the military and they were somewhere else in the world, how many cancers would there be in that same size of population?
Dr. Bertell: Roughly 20 per cent of your population dies of cancer. There are small fluctuations up and down, depending on where you live in the world, but it is roughly 20 per cent. We are talking here about premature death.
Senator Taylor: Due to cancer?
Dr. Bertell: Yes, premature death due to cancer. It is different from dying. Everybody is going to die, but there is a natural lifespan, so we are talking here about shortening that lifespan.
Senator Taylor: I still do not understand the difference between premature cancer and an ordinary cancer. You say that these are people dying prematurely because of cancer. Does not everybody die prematurely when they get cancer?
Dr. Bertell: No.
Senator Taylor: Where is that line? If you are over 70, is it normal?
Dr. Bertell: Let me tell you a story about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When they first discovered the leukemia increase in the survivors there, they took the population, assumed everybody would live to age 72, and calculated how many leukemia cases they would have. Leukemia is a disease of old age. They calculated, over the theoretical lifespan of 72 years, how many cases of leukemia they would expect and they found that they had an excess over that number. They call that a "true excess." That is when they decided that the radiation initiates cancer. It does not just accelerate cancers you would get over the lifetime. It actually initiates cancers that you would not have gotten over a lifetime. That is a true excess. When you count fatal cancers due to radiation, you are talking about cancers people would not have gotten in the normal course of life.
Senator Taylor: They would not have got it before 72.
Dr. Bertell: No. Even if you took that population and counted how many leukemia cases you would get if everybody lived to be 72, you would still have more.
Senator Taylor: This graph shows that many more people died than would have died normally. How many people died "normally" then, if 482 million died prematurely?
Dr. Bertell: Everybody dies.
Senator Taylor: I know, but you just said these were people who died prematurely.
The Chairman: Shall we wind this up?
Senator Taylor: I am trying to get to the math of the thing. I find it very difficult to follow her math. 484 million people died. I am not trying to badger the witness. I apologize if I am sounding like that.
The Chairman: No, I am not suggesting that, Senator Taylor, but I think it is a very difficult question and I am not sure we have time to get to the bottom it.
Dr. Bertell: You can think of an automobile accident. This is an insult to the body that the person would not get if they were not hit by the car. That is going to change the rest of his or her life. Radiation is an insult to the body. You change then the course of the history of that person.
Senator Taylor: Automobile accidents are a good analogy. We have so many people die from automobile accidents each year in Canada, and we have so many people that die each year in Canada, period. A certain percentage of the total deaths are from automobile accidents, and this is what I am trying to get at here. Of the total deaths that there were in the world at that time, what percentage of 484 million deaths from radiation were there between 1946 and 2000?
Dr. Bertell: Legally, you are not responsible for all the normal deaths in a society, but if you cause death, you are responsible. I am in a completely different ball park. I am referring to causing death because you cause some kind of harm to a person.
Senator Taylor: I see we are not getting anywhere on that one. What do you think is a proper buffer zone around a nuclear power plant? How big should it be?
Dr. Bertell: That is a difficult question because there are two problems with it: One is that the radioactive gases that are emitted in a nuclear power plant are not even monitored unless they are above a million electron volts, and most of them are below that. They release a large amount of radioactive gases that are never monitored. These will affect the downwind population. I cannot give you any estimate because it is not measured. They are just allowed to be released.
Of the measured releases, the major pathway to the human population is via the food chain. It would make more sense to put, say, a three-kilometre radius around farming or fruit trees, because the pollution is going to people via the food chain.
Senator Taylor: You would not be afraid that the nuclear people would argue that at least that stops E.coli.
As you know, we do not use nuclear power. As a general rule, we use hydrocarbon-generated power from natural gas or oil. I will not even touch upon the hydro and the dams. When you use oil and gas, as you know, it kills. Hydrocarbons kill many people. Have you made any comparison at all between the number of deaths caused by hydrocarbons in the air and in the system and the nuclear system?
Dr. Bertell: Yes. When Ontario Hydro produced its 25 year plan, we intervened on the basis of health. We did a health assessment of each of the manners of generating electricity, including hydro, including fossil fuel, and so on. We do have a comparison. It is a five-volume work. It is quite big. We did an assessment and had 28 scientists working on it. If you are interested in reading it, I warn you it is long.
Senator Taylor: I did not want to read the whole thing. I just thought I might have been fortunate enough to get a graph like this of how many million people had died prematurely because of hydrocarbons.
Dr. Bertell: I do not have the final numbers in my head. Certainly, it is very high from fossil fuel.
Senator Taylor: Would you say it was higher or lower?
Dr. Bertell: I do not think it was as high as the nuclear, but it is high.
The Chairman: Dr. Bertell, if you have a summary of that report, we would very much like to see it. We cannot read five volumes, but if you could provide a précis, that would be useful.
Senators Banks: I am very sorry, Mr. Chairman and Dr. Bertell, to revert to the question that Senator Taylor was asking, but I hope you will understand that for me, at least, these numbers are beyond comprehension. I cannot conceive of 3 billion deaths caused by something we do. That kind of number never occurred to me before.
I am going to ask Senator Taylor's question again. It is about attribution in the methodology. You said, for example, that there is a certain amount of background radiation. We get it anyway. I think you also said, given the levels which would provide safety, that there are some places where background radiation may be deemed to cause cancers. Is that correct?
Dr. Bertell: Right.
Senator Banks: The question is twofold. How certain can we be in attributing a cancer death that occurred in Des Moines or Saskatoon to military causes as opposed to other causes? Are we able to say with certainty that person died because of a military application and that person died because of a domestic application?
Dr. Bertell: No. I think that is the difficulty with the way our system is set up. We have to be able to take a particular case and prove it. You cannot do that in this kind of area. It is also a problem for workers, in that when a particular worker here is sick, how do you know if it came from their exposure, or whether they would have gotten it anyway?
I have been arguing for a long time that it is not the fault of science. It is the fault of the compensation mechanism. If we actually worked with what science could do, we could say, for example, what proportion of lung cancers comes from smoking, what proportion comes from pollution, and what proportion comes from radiation. Then we could say, when this person has cancer, if, for example, he was a smoker, he could pay for that part of his own sickness. If the pollution is causing 10 per cent or 15 per cent, let the polluters pay 15 per cent of everybody's lung cancer treatment. We could do that. We can get attributable proportions, so we could say what proportion of cancer is due to nuclear energy and you could charge them that proportion of everybody's cancer. However, we cannot pick out an individual person and say, "You got it from smoking," or "You got it from a nuclear plant," or "You got it from PCBs." We cannot do that. You are asking science the wrong question and it cannot answer it.
Senator Banks: Since that is so, how is it possible that in the graphs we are able to attribute 484 million deaths to weapons testing, weapons production, and military actions on the one hand, and say that on the other hand, nuclear power and industrial accidents have caused 72 million deaths? Where do we get the veracity for those numbers? I do not know what the time frames are here, by the way.
Dr. Bertell: We have a great deal of research on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, medical uses of radiation, radiation disasters, and so on. From all of this scientific background, we know that, given a certain dose of radiation to a large number of people, you can estimate how many cancers are caused. Once you know the dose that has been given, and how many people were exposed, you can estimate how many cancers there are going to be and you will be pretty close.
Senator Banks: Is that the derivation of these figures?
Dr. Bertell: That is the derivation of these figures.
Senator Banks: If I release this much radiation, it is going to kill that many people.
Dr. Bertell: Yes. The United Nations has done the dose estimate and the number of people, so I use their estimate and then the risk estimates from the scientific literature.
Senator Finnerty: We are given to understand there is a fairly large buffer zone around the Canadian nuclear facilities. How do you feel about that? Do you think it is enough of a buffer zone, or have you looked at that at all?
Dr. Bertell: First of all, you are talking about nuclear power plants.
Senator Finnerty: Yes.
Dr. Bertell: They do have a buffer zone, more or less. They could use berms, or they could use something that would prevent some of the air pollution and also be protection in case of an accident. There are also unprotected areas around uranium mining and milling and the tailings piles, and then there are companies that use radioactive material, like that company in Pembroke that is recovering tritium. They are right in a residential area. There are no buffer zones around those kinds of companies. So it is uneven. I think you are right; the power plants have buffer zones.
Senator Finnerty: Do you think that the nuclear power plants offer any benefits to the public? Have you weighed any benefits against the expected damage?
Dr. Bertell: The benefit is electricity. Electricity is not needed for many of our end uses, like space heating and cooling, water heating. Those can be much better handled directly without using electricity. You actually waste a lot of energy by changing it back into heating and cooling. Yes, we need power, we need electricity. I think we are using it for too many end uses which do not require it. For example, you could use direct solar to heat 70 per cent of your home, so that would very much reduce electricity use. I do not think we need it.
I really think it was promoted because it was necessary for the public to accept nuclear technology. You must have a front industry for the military, whether that industry is producing weapons or not, because you want universities to train nuclear physicists and engineers. You need uranium mining and milling. You have waste. You really affect the whole of society and you want people to accept that.
Nobody is going to mine uranium if the only end use is weapons. Nobody is going to teach nuclear science in a university if the graduates are going to be making weapons. You must have a front industry, so there was a great desire for a so-called "peaceful" nuclear industry as a front for the military. It does not mean that the people in the "peaceful" industry are military. They are not. They can operate on their own.
This industry had everything going for it. It was given money, research, the green light all along the line, and it was not able to develop into a good industry. It is a loser. It should never have been allowed, and I think it was basically a front for the military.
Senator Adams: Dr. Bertell, I live in the North. We used to be one territory. We now have two territories with the addition of Nunavut. We do not have any type of nuclear power station.
Dr. Bertell: I have been up to Baker Lake.
Senator Adams: Many people up there now are getting cancer. I am over 60 years old now. I did not see many people die of cancer when I was young. Now more and more people are getting cancer.
Can the pollution travel a long way from the area of the power plant? Is it just like any coal-generated power plant, where the pollution goes up in the air and, as soon as it gets cold, drops down on the ground? Have any studies been done on the subject of radioactive pollution travelling through the atmosphere?
Dr. Bertell: The fallout from weapons testing was heaviest in the North, and some of the weapons testing was done very high in the stratosphere, even above the stratosphere, and the fallout came down at the north magnetic pole. That is besides all the Russian nuclear industries that you have up there. There was a lot of fallout in the North. It has been documented and measured, especially in the caribou. The caribou are highly polluted, and of course caribou was one of the mainstays of the diet of the people in the North. There was heavy radioactive fallout.
The fallout from a nuclear reactor will be more localized. However, any major releases in an accident like the Chernobyl accident, for example, had heavy fallout in the North. You did get pollution, unfortunately.
Senator Adams: Even living up there, a long way from down south, we got pollution.
Dr. Bertell: The caribou did not migrate in the winter of 1957-58. That was probably due to the massive weapons testing that was done. I think the caribou did not calve that year. They stayed in one place. Many northern people died that winter. The Canadian government sent helicopters out in the spring and took the people that were still living and moved them into Baker Lake.
Senator Adams: I remember that.
Dr. Bertell: That was like a rescue effort. That was the first time in an oral history of 2,000 years that the caribou did not migrate. I think that was the fallout.
Senator Banks: I am back on my old track, just trying to get a handle on it. I am not sure what the timeline is of the 2.33 billion victims of radiation from nuclear events.
Dr. Bertell: The timeline is from 1945 to 2000.
Senator Banks: In that 55 years, how many people died? What proportion of people who died is 2.33 billion, give or take a nickel? Did ten times as many people die, 100 times as many people die, twice as many people die?
Dr. Bertell: To give a rough guess, and I am not actually counting how many people died, there are 6 billion now on this earth, but that number has been growing. Normally, when there is radiation pollution, the proportion changes from 20 per cent of the deaths to maybe 25 per cent of the deaths, so you might say there are about four times as many total deaths.
Senator Banks: This might represent as much as 25 per cent of the deaths that occurred in the same time period.
Dr. Bertell: Right, but that is a rough guess.
Senator Taylor: In your report, Dr. Bertell, you mention that the World Health Organization did not have the money to publish their report. From the report on the deaths or the effects of Chernobyl, it appears that the Atomic Energy Agency claims there were only minimal deaths. I think you imply that that might not be a correct conclusion. I know it is not published. It might be difficult, but can you enlighten me on that?
Dr. Bertell: There is a major report by the World Health Organization. However, the report you are quoting was done by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is mandated by the United Nations to promote nuclear energy. That is the report that is available and that is being quoted.
The World Health Organization had a major professional meeting with a number of very good papers, but they never had enough money to put the report out. That dates back to 1959.
If you look back in history, you will find that the hydrogen bomb, the so-called successful one, was exploded in 1954 in Bikini. At that point President Eisenhower went to the United Nations and gave his "peaceful atom" speech. That peaceful atom speech was followed by the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has two mandates from the United Nations: to prevent horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons and to promote nuclear energy and peaceful uses.
During that period, from 1954 to 1960, the World Health Organization held two meetings. The first one was circa 1957 and it was on the genetic effects of radiation. The WHO came out with a very devastating report on what could be expected with genetic and teratogenic damage in utero if this industry went ahead. That was followed by a meeting that was convened at the request of the nuclear people on the mental health implications of nuclear power. They said that if people knew about the genetic damage, there would be severe mental health problems. You can still read these documents, they are out there.
After the mental health problems were identified, a memo of understanding was made between the International Atomic Energy Agency and WHO that said that the IAEA would take the lead in radiation health questions; so the World Health Organization was cut out.
The nuclear people did the same thing with the ILO, the International Labour Organization. The ILO is not allowed to deal with worker health. Everything is under the IAEA, and yet IAEA members are the promoters of the industry. It is a very bad set-up. There is a large conflict of interest. It is not set up properly.
The Chairman: Dr. Bertell, we have a time constraint. If we have further questions, I hope you will agree to answer written questions.
Dr. Bertell: I would be glad to.
The Chairman: I am sure your testimony has raised many other questions that we just do not have the time to go into.
Dr. Bertell: I will send you a summary of the various ways of producing electricity.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we now move to the next item on our agenda. Our witnesses are from the Campaign Against the Adams Mine.
Mr. Pierre Bélanger, Campaign Against the Adams Mine: Honourable senators, thank you very much for this improvised audience. We are distributing to you a short history and chronology of the battle we are up against in northern Ontario.
We are now in Ottawa. We are in the last hours, the last minutes of this issue for us. As it stands now, this project has a limited environmental assessment approval and a permit from the Ontario government for operations. The City of Toronto proposes to send 20 million tonnes of its municipal waste over the next 20 years to this water-filled iron ore mine. We have exhausted 11 years of procedures, of efforts, of lobbying efforts, both at Queen's Park and in Toronto.
Toronto council is determined to forge ahead with this on the second, third and fourth of October. I am telling you this because there is a timeline that is very urgent. Toronto council will ratify this contract in its last regular meeting before the November municipal elections in Ontario. The council has accepted it in principle from a short list of other bidders.
Today we request the federal government to intervene based on the provisions of the federal environmental legislation, which on two counts allows the federal government to intervene in this area and to protect our water interests and our rights to a non-polluted environment. We need protection from what is an insane project.
Under the federal act, the federal government may intervene if the issue is transboundary, if it affects two provinces. That is clearly the case here. Downstream from this mine is lac Témiscaming or Lake Timiskaming, depending on whether you are on the Quebec side or the Ontario side. The lake is split in two. Further, under the legislation, the federal government can and must intervene if federal lands are affected. There is a request from an aboriginal community, which Chief Carol McBride can speak to later on.
We have made a request formally to Minister David Anderson on both those counts, the effect it would have on federal lands in reserve and the effect it would have on two provinces. We begin there. Our brief contains all the unanimous municipalities of the Quebec side, the near-unanimous municipalities of the Ontario side, citizen groups and chambers of commerce. We are asking the federal government to intervene because federal interests are at stake here and so, of course, are citizens' interests.
This pit is a rock pit -- fractured, fissured rock. If this project goes ahead and then fails, as we demonstrate it will, there will be leakage from that pit and it will flow from adjoining rivers into Lake Timiskaming and down the Ottawa River right to Ottawa and Quebec. It will affect all the municipalities around Ottawa, and it will affect the ground water.
We have a press conference this morning, and this afternoon we have a rally to demonstrate again the concerns of the people from that area. This has been a very long, bitter and protracted fight in northern Ontario. There are many layers and issues here.
We are trying to stop a mega dump. If only the one pit shown on that poster is developed, this will be the largest dump or landfill in all of Canada. And there are two other pits adjoining the first pit, and it has been proposed that they be developed also.
We are up against Toronto and the surrounding regional municipalities of Peel, York and Durham, which would all be partners in this shipment. They have a waste aversion rate of 24 per cent. They still resort to landfill, which is, at best, 1950's technology. We know now in Canada that there are alternatives, as demonstrated by Edmonton and Halifax. There is no secret as to how good waste management can be done. It is achieved elsewhere in Canada. Yet, we are facing a municipality that will not change its ways. It wants another 20 years of no problems, send it to a dump site. The project proposed here would send garbage by rail.
The Chairman: Could you give us some idea as to why the City of Toronto has refused to listen to any alternatives?
Mr. Bélanger: May I ask Ms Lloyd to answer that question? I am a businessman and very involved in the project as a citizen, but I am by far the least technically qualified in the group. Ms Lloyd is the knowledgeable one.
Ms Brennain Lloyd, Campaign Against the Adams Mine: There are a number of theories and a couple of reasons why Toronto is so resistant to any option other than this option. One is a problem of process. Toronto is looking at three different tracks for waste management options: one, is new and emerging technologies, where there is incredible potential; two, is proven diversion; and three, is waste disposal. The assumption on Toronto's part is that waste disposal means incinerators or landfills. Toronto put out a request for proposals from the private sector for waste disposal. The fundamental flaw in the process is that the city is making decisions on its disposal option prior to being able to come to any conclusion on what its real potential is in diversion.
First of all, Toronto has a management problem. Second, I think it has a problem with some historical or traditional relationships between some people in the City of Toronto Works Department, people on the works committee and the staff; some of the elected officials on the works committee have a long-term allegiance to this project that goes back to 1990. I think that we have a problem of personal commitment and political alliances that were formed a decade ago and that continue to plague us.
Third, the Toronto council is struggling with an incredible weight of very complex issues. We go to the council committee meetings again and again and we repeatedly see the members not able to deal with the work that is on their agenda. I really believe that they are looking for any way to avoid dealing with the waste management problem, and they think that this will allow them not to have to deal with it. It is a 20-year contract. They think they can get the issue off council's plate for 20 years. That is perhaps a bigger structural problem. Council just does not want to deal with the problem. These people do not want to deal with the fiscal investments that would be required for better diversion and they do not want to have the issue coming back to them again in two years, or three years, or five years.
Senator Christensen: I am from the Yukon. The picture you showed us could have been taken in Whitehorse. We have an open pit mine that was used for garbage, and it was 15 years before the leakage started showing up in the creeks. It was that long before it started leaking.
This sort of thing cannot happen unless there are agreements. What about the town of Kirkland Lake? Are there agreements? You cannot take garbage from Toronto without various people being consulted.
Mr. David Ramsay, Member of Provincial Parliament (Timiskaming--Cochrane), Campaign Against the Adams Mine: This whole idea of a willing host has been one of the contentious issues. The proponent of the project in 1989-1990 was able to convince the town councils of the day from Kirkland Lake, Larder Lake and Englehart to sign on as willing hosts for a proportion of the tipping fee. As you know, money drives everything in this world. That would amount to several hundred thousand dollars a year for Kirkland Lake, and lesser amounts for the smaller towns. We are a very depressed region, as Senator Finnerty knows very well, and those councils were desperate. As they saw the gold mining industry go down, they thought that this would be a new source of revenue.
In the 1991 municipal election in Kirkland Lake, there was a referendum question asking the people if they would be willing to let the town pursue an environmental assessment of this proposal. In order to sell the idea of having a referendum on the question, the mayor at the time said not to worry about supporting the vote to go forward with an environmental assessment, because there would be a second vote. If the environmental assessment proved to be positive, there would be a second referendum later on down the road to gauge the people's willingness to have the process proceed.
So that is where we are. Survey after survey, public opinion poll after public opinion poll that I have commissioned from independent pollsters shows that a vast majority -- 77 per cent -- of the people in the region through the whole Timiskaming district are against this project. Feelings are stronger in the farm areas: 86 per cent against in the tri-towns and the clay belt farming area. And in the so-called willing host triangle between Kirkland Lake, Larder Lake and Englehart, 62 per cent are against. Therefore, the idea that we are willing hosts is a fraud that has been perpetrated upon the council of Toronto. The idea that we are willing hosts is one of the strengths of this proposal to the city, but it is not true.
Senator Christensen: You have not had the second referendum.
Mr. Ramsay: Never.
Senator Christensen: You have had the first vote but not a second one. What you are asking for is a full environmental assessment.
Mr. Ramsay: Yes, and a referendum for the people.
Senator Banks: Can the people not, by means of a petition, require the municipalities to hold a referendum?
Mr. Ramsay: Unfortunately, there is nothing in Ontario law to compel the towns to do that. There has not been in the past. New legislation was enacted very late this spring, and when the people again asked the council to hold a referendum in this election, we were told that the deadline of the new legislation was now past and it could not happen. The town has consistently refused the residents' desire to have a referendum on this.
Senator Finnerty: Chief McBride, are there land claims around this pit? How do you fit in?
Chief Carol McBride, Campaign Against the Adams Mine: I will let David Nahwegahbow answer the legal part of it. The Adams Mine site is in our traditional territory. Our traditional territory is marked in blue on the map, and the Adams Mine site is right in that territory.
Mr. David Nahwegahbow, Legal Counsel for the Timiskaming First Nation: There is an outstanding aboriginal title claim to that area. The area identified in light blue on the map is the subject of unextinguished aboriginal title. It belongs to the Timiskaming First Nation. In fact, that is one of the items on which Timiskaming has also filed a petition requesting the Minister of the Environment to hold a full environmental assessment. That is one of the federal interests at stake.
As you know, the Crown has a fiduciary responsibility to aboriginal peoples when aboriginal title is at stake -- in this case, an Indian reserve. Timiskaming draws its drinking water from waters that could be polluted by a leachate flowing out of that dump site. The Timiskaming First Nation people carry out traditional harvesting practices throughout that territory and they stand to be fairly severely affected by a dump site.
Senator Finnerty: Part of the argument has been that this is a provincial problem, not a federal problem; but the question of waterways and land claims is certainly federal.
Mr. Nahwegahbow: One final point: we do have a copy of the Timiskaming petition for the federal environmental assessment. We will table one with this committee.
The Chairman: I should like to move to discussion of a solution.
Senator Kenny: First, I wish to say for the record that it was Senator Finnerty who brought this to our attention in her capacity as a senator from northern Ontario. We are all grateful to her for bringing this situation to our attention. There has been a great deal of discussion in Ottawa as a result of Senator Finnerty's interventions. I can tell you that she has brought it to the Prime Minister's attention; she has brought it to the cabinet's attention. She has been very active on this matter.
Talking to the straight politics of this, it is a provincial issue and it is a risky area to get into. If the provinces made a mess of this -- and it appears they have -- they should carry the bag for it. It is not necessarily the wisest politician who picks up somebody else's jurisdiction and starts messing with it. A safer route, perhaps, is just to hang this on the provincial government and let them dig out of their mess.
Having said that, there are reasons, which Senator Finnerty has brought to our attention, that indicate some federal duty. One is the Indian lands that we have just been talking about. The other is the cross-border question that also is compelling.
The Chairman: There is also the trigger of fish in the navigable waters.
Senator Kenny: There is technology, developed by the federal government, in use in southern Ontario. That technology not only deals effectively with waste but also has by-products that are actually commercially useful. It produces peat. It also produces natural gas, and I am told that it generates a significant amount of revenue. That technology appears not to have been adequately considered in this case.
I realize that this is perhaps a bit precipitous or a bit rushed, but I would suggest that the committee consider moving a motion to instruct the Chair to write to the minister on behalf of the committee, indicating our desire to have an environmental assessment take place. Also, we could put a motion to the Senate indicating that this committee is of the view that an environmental assessment should take place and that we seek the sense of the Senate on this. We could endeavour to put it to a vote in the Senate and then convey that to the government as well. There may be other useful things that we can do, but it occurs to me that if we are looking to act swiftly, those are two things that we might be able to accomplish sooner rather than later. I put them on the table for consideration, Madam Chair.
The Chairman: The resolution in the Senate on the request to the minister would require leave to have it dealt with today, because if it is not dealt with today it will be passed soon. When did you say the date was, October the fourth?
Mr. Bélanger: The second, third and fourth of October.
The Chairman: We would have to ask leave, so you would have to speak to your leader, which I think I should like you to do in the Senate, but we have to speak to the motion.
Senator Kenny: Assuming there is agreement, and we have not determined that.
The Chairman: We have not determined that. I am just pointing it out.
Senator Finnerty: Should the Aboriginal Committee be aware of this, too?
Senator Kenny: It is a question of how many hours we have.
The Chairman: The Aboriginal Committee would probably not meet in time. There are two motions: one is that a letter be written to the minister and the second is that a resolution be put in the Senate this afternoon. I guess it would be a resolution.
Mr. Michel Patrice, Clerk of the Committee: It could be a report of the committee.
Senator Kenny: I would recommend a report of the committee -- an interim report, if you like. But is it not possible for us also to seek the sense of the Senate and to put a resolution before the Senate?
The Chairman: With leave, you can do anything.
Mr. Patrice: By way of report, it would give notice to the Senate that you have a request, as framed by the committee. It is a full committee decision and you ask the Senate to concur in it, like on a bill, for example. If leave is not granted, the decision might not be taken by the Senate today, but at its next sitting the Senate could do so.
The Chairman: It would be too late.
Senator Kenny: Nothing can stop us from issuing your letter and nothing can stop us from tabling the report today. Those two things we can do without getting jerked around. On the third thing, we take our chances with getting leave.
The Chairman: We could present the report, but we should also have a resolution. I think that the resolution should be put by Senator Finnerty since she is the most knowledgeable in the area and this is her area. If there is a way of doing this, I should like to table the report and also have a resolution, because that has more force.
Mr. Patrice: By presenting the report you are basically asking for a resolution of the Senate, since it would come from the committee as a whole as opposed to a member of the Senate.
The Chairman: We can discuss the mechanics later. I should like to have it voted on today.
Senator Taylor: I am a little bothered by the municipal aspect. I gather that the municipal government of the day has approved and gone ahead. You say your polls show that this project is opposed by 77 per cent of the people. I do not think it is unusual to have municipal governments, from time to time, doing something that 77 per cent or more of the people do not like. I am just wondering whether it is the Senate's field to be in there slapping municipal governments. When is your next election? The democratic process says that there is a way of handling this, which is that you throw out the people who are in power.
Mr. Ramsay: May I make a clarification about this? November 13 is the date for all municipal elections in Ontario, but the site is not in any of those municipalities. The Adams Mine site is in what we in Ontario call an unorganized municipality. It has no municipal level of government. Those three towns seek to speak for this piece of territory that is not in any of their jurisdictions. That is part of the conflict we have here. As it has such a regional impact, we do not feel that the three-year term of a municipal politician allows those councils to speak on behalf of a whole district, for a piece of land that they have no jurisdiction over.
Senator Banks: What is the municipal authority for that piece of land?
Mr. Ramsay: There is none. It does not exist.
Senator Taylor: We are marching in here. I would not be happy if the Senate passed something affecting my municipality just because a delegation came down and told the Senate they did not want it. My idea would be to throw them out. In most provinces you have a municipal government or you have it under approved areas, or whatever they call it. It is run directly out of the Ontario government department dealing with municipalities. You are asking us to tell that Ontario department how to run its business.
Mr. Ramsay: Actually, today we are only here to ask that the federal government entertain the request from the First Nations. The First Nations originated the request for a federal environmental assessment.
Senator Taylor: I think our committee should write a letter to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to investigate this. I do not like the idea of going to the floor of the Senate. We will look foolish.
The Chairman: I do not think so, but we have your opinion.
Senator Taylor: We are enthusiastic but stupid.
Senator Kenny: As an enthusiastically stupid senator, let me respond. I do not see the motion we are putting forward as telling anybody at the provincial or municipal level anything. I am talking about a motion telling a federal minister we would like him to introduce an environmental assessment. That is it. That is all. Nothing more.
Senator Taylor: I say we do not need a motion for that.
The Chairman: Yes, you do.
Senator Kenny: How do we convey it otherwise? She cannot write a letter without a motion from the committee.
Senator Taylor: I agree, but you are talking about the floor of the Senate.
Senator Kenny: The beauty of the floor of the Senate is that it is one thing to have the clout of this committee and it is another thing to have the whole Senate say that we think this is a good thing.
Senator Taylor: I do not think I would take the chance. They will turn us down.
The Chairman: As one who participated in the hearings to do with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that was brought in, I remember it took a long time. It is very evident here that the minister has the power to order an environmental assessment, and there is certainly a trigger. There are two triggers here. At a very quick glance, there are two triggers. The point about this particular situation, which I have seen repeated all over Canada, is that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It is time that the federal government honoured the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, particularly when you have what appears like an overwhelming popular desire. They are asking for due process, fairness and justice. Really, that is what it is about, and it is repeated all over Canada. Therefore, I think it is eminently desirable that this come before the Senate. That is my view.
Senator Banks: Request the motion be seconded.
The Chairman: We do not need a seconder.
Senator Adams: Madam chairman, I think we should include the fact that natives have been making the land claim at Kirkland Lake. I do not know how the process works in provinces. I am more familiar with it in the territories. I believe that the situation is that when a land claim is in process, it puts a stop to mining development and so on. Perhaps Mr. Nahwegahbow can tell us the status of this particular land claim.
Mr. Nahwegahbow: The federal government has been notified of a claim in that territory. They are well aware of it. In fact, as part of the submissions made to the provincial government for their environmental assessment, which was unfortunately very limited in scope, documentation was submitted from the federal Department of Indian Affairs regarding potential aboriginal title within that area. They are well aware of it. In fact, one of their experts within the research and treaties branch wrote a letter confirming that interest.
Senator Adams: How long have you been negotiating?
Mr. Nahwegahbow: The matter is not being negotiated yet. They are on notice of the claim. The matter is still at the research stage.
Senator Cochrane: I am on the same wavelength as Senator Taylor.
Senator Kenny: He just changed his wavelength.
Senator Cochrane: This seems to be a municipal concern. I do not know if we should intervene in that since you seem to have done quite a bit of work already. What has been the response so far from the federal government with regard to the minister and the minister's office? Have you had any response?
Mr. Bélanger: We are meeting this afternoon.
Senator Cochrane: You have not done anything yet?
Ms McBride: We submitted our application about three weeks ago.
Senator Cochrane: You submitted an application for what?
Ms McBride: We submitted an application for the environmental assessment, the petition. We have not heard anything as yet. We have not heard any decision.
Senator Cochrane: Madam Chair, are we jumping the gun here?
Senator Finnerty: They are meeting with the minister this afternoon.
Senator Cochrane: Yes, I know that.
Senator Finnerty: The reason we are jumping the gun is that they are only in town for today. When I heard they were here, I thought it would be beneficial for us to hear the plight of northern Ontario.
Ms Lloyd: If I could add to Chief McBride's response, let me say that you are quite correct in focusing your attention on those federal triggers. Under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, this is a federal issue. We have come to you because of the federal nature of the impacts of this project.
There are three triggers under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Two of them are what are called discretionary treatments. The minister must make a decision to refer the project to a panel review of the mediation. In the five years the act has been in force -- it is in its fifth year now and is under review -- the minister has not yet used either of those discretionary treatments. Those relate to aboriginal interest or interest in federal lands and to transboundary impacts.
There is a third trigger, which is a mandatory trigger under the Fisheries Act because there will be an impact on fish and waters frequented by fish. That trigger is the 312 million litres of leachate that will be dumped every year in the Missinaibi River, which is a cold water fishery. DFO has been negligent, but that is a mandatory trigger.
Senator Cochrane: Ms Lloyd, I am not questioning that. I am just wondering what the response of the federal government has been to these arguments. Have you made that argument to the minister?
Ms Lloyd: We will leave this with you. Chief McBride has indicated that they have provided their petition. That is the formal application or request to the minister to refer to panel review. They did that some weeks ago. We have come to Ottawa today with our application, with our letter, our petition and our supporting brief. We will leave that with the Chair.
Senator Taylor: All we have to do is give a motion that supports their application.
The Chairman: We have a motion on the floor already.
Senator Adams: There are two motions.
Mr. Nahwegahbow: I was just going to say, Madam Chair, that the reaction of the ministry to date has been to show an interest, certainly on the aboriginal issues, but to gauge also the reaction of the public in the progression of this matter. In the end, it will be a political decision. As we know, any kind of support for a federal environmental assessment will be useful, especially since it is unprecedented.
Senator Kenny: Madam Chair, we should say that we will speak either for them or against them, whichever will help most.
The Chairman: I have two motions here. Both motions are Senator Kenny's. The first motion is to write the letter to the minister supporting their two applications. All those in favour?
Carried on a show of hands.
The second is to present a report this afternoon from the committee, requesting movement on the environmental assessment.
Senator Christensen: Is there a way we could table that motion? There has not been enough response from the federal government at this point. I would hate to see the motion defeated.
Senator Kenny: Hopefully, the sense of the motion would be that this committee urges the federal government to consider an environmental assessment under these circumstances, and leave it at that.
The Chairman: That is not chastising anybody. You get more with honey than with vinegar. The point is that we are simply supporting the applications.
Senator Taylor: I do not think that in your letter you have to say you are supporting. I think in the motion they are saying they may conduct an environmental assessment. Do not wiggle around at all.
The Chairman: Any further discussion? If not, all those in favour?
Opposed, if any?
Carried on a show of hands.
I must tell you that, in my own province, a fifth of the province -- including many rivers, including sites for tropical birds that come over, including aboriginal claims, including fish and animals of all kinds -- was given away to Louisiana Pacific by the previous government and there was absolutely no environmental assessment, even though there could be great damage to fish. Therefore, I am not sure that that trigger is so mandatory. In fact, this is an interesting story: there was an environmental assessment of a little bridge.
Senator Taylor: Move down there to the witness chair.
The Chairman: I do not take much time in this committee. I just want to say there was a little bridge over one small stream on which they allowed an environmental assessment, and then an environmental group went to court about that, saying that it is not just a little bridge, that the little bridge leads to much more. The judge found against them and assessed costs. This is now in court again because the environmental group is appealing it. It is not bizarre or strange at all to find that the environmental assessment process, as I said in the beginning, is hardly being used at all.
Mr. Bélanger: Perhaps I could have the last word, and it is not at all in argument. It is to thank you for receiving us on short notice. Perhaps as a personal comment, if I may follow your lead, this is an unusual issue in that it is very contentious. However, in our district, it is an unusual example of unity. In the province of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois member is opposing it. You see him standing with us in those pictures. Québécois, Ontarians, French, English, First Nations, chambers of commerce, workers, labourers, unions -- it is a wonderful example of a consensus opposition done in a very proud, Canadian way. It is not fractious, at least at that level, in Timiskaming. We thank you for your time. The only good things that have come out of this for us are the alliances and working relationships we have forged.
The Chairman: We must continue. The meeting is adjourned.
The committee adjourned.