QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
Nuclear Energy Development
March 3, 2022
Minister, your climate plan heralds the expertise Canada has long had in nuclear energy and small, modular reactors, or SMRs, in particular. It also talks about working with the European Union and the U.K. to explore the advancement of the safe and secure zero-emission technology. Now, more than ever, that would seem to be an urgent matter.
Minister, have you explored with the European countries that depend upon Russia for energy the export of Canadian small, modular reactor expertise and technology to reduce and even eliminate that dependency? If not, then why not?
As you know, energy is not within Environment and Climate Change but within Natural Resources Canada.
That being said, we have ongoing conversations with our European friends and colleagues to see how we can help them as they transition quickly away from Russian oil and gas. As you may know, we don’t have right now an SMR Canadian technology that is up and running. There’s research and development happening, but that technology is not ready to be deployed commercially and it therefore cannot be exported to other countries. But the federal government is subsidizing research and development in that sector.
If you want more specific information, you should address your question to the Minister of Natural Resources.
