A federal watchdog has issued an urgent call to the country's nuclear regulator to tighten inspections of Canada's nuclear power plants, calling the current situation "not acceptable."

In a report released Tuesday, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Julie Gelfand finds a number of failings at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the agency responsible for ensuring nuclear plants are safe and secure.

Gelfand said 75 per cent of site safety inspections were carried out without an approved guide, and compared that scenario to a pilot taking off on a flight without going through a safety checklist.

"I think it's pretty serious," she said Tuesday at a news conference across from Parliament Hill.

Gelfand said the commission is not systematic or rigorous in its planning and documentation, relying instead on the professional judgment of staff.

"This kind of lack of precision in a precision industry I think is really not acceptable," she said. "These mistakes should not happen when we're dealing with nuclear power plants."

Her report said the CNSC could not demonstrate that its inspection plans included the appropriate number and types of inspections, or that it had the staff needed to verify that nuclear power plants were complying with requirements.

She said there were errors and incomplete information in the database, recording inspections had been done when they had not been done, and in other cases showing inspections as incomplete when they had in fact been completed.

Inspections not recorded

The report also raises questions about staffing and whether the CNSC has enough inspectors to carry out its mandate.

"While senior management told us that they believed there were enough inspectors and that more were reassigned as issues arose, we were told by site inspectors and site supervisors at every nuclear power plant that there were either not enough inspectors at their sites or not enough at the levels needed," the report says.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Julie Gelfand says the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission cannot show that inspections are being done in a way that ensures facilities are complying with all requirements. 3:20

The CNSC issues licenses and monitors Canada's four nuclear power plants in Ontario and New Brunswick.

The CSNC accepted the report's recommendations. In a statement released Tuesday, it said the CNSC took corrective actions immediately after learning about the findings.

"I have always welcomed peer reviews, international benchmarking, audits and evaluations, as part of our commitment to continuous improvement. We have already completed work on most of the recommendations, and will comprehensively address all of the report's findings by the end of March 2017," reads the statement from CNSC's president and chief executive officer Michael Binder.

3 audit reports

The audit of inspections at Canadian nuclear power plants was one of three reports tabled today.

A second examined how various government departments, including Justice, National Defence, Parks Canada, Public Services and Procurement and Veterans Affairs made positive or negative environmental impacts in their policies, plans and programs.

It found all departments except for Parks Canada fell short in adequately applying the government's environmental assessment strategy.

A third audit revealed major problems with the management of Canada's major fish stocks.

Gelfand said the office embarked on the audit to determine if there could be a stock collapse like the cod collapse of 1992.

Her investigation found 15 stocks in critical condition and in need of rebuilding plans, yet they were still being fished. Twelve of those stocks did not even have rebuilding plans.

"We are at potential risk for another stock to potentially collapse," she warned.

Missing fish files

Overall, the report found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada was missing key information needed to manage fish stocks sustainably.

The department had management plans for 110 of Canada's 154 major fish stocks, but plans for the remaining 44 were either missing or out of date.

It also points out Fisheries and Oceans Canada had significant budget cuts between 2011 and 2016, and that the department has been unable to complete all its scientific surveys of fish stocks because of mechanical problems aboard Canadian Coast Guard vessels.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has agreed to the report's recommendations. The federal government has promised to increase the department's budget by $197 million over five years.

The department says it will use that new funding to improve monitoring of key species of marine mammals and fish.