Is Canada prepared to let our nuclear industry wither away, along with the $6.6 billion and 30,000 jobs it generates directly for the economy? Duncan Hawthorne, the CEO of Bruce Power, has raised that troubling question.

Canada risks losing “very, very marketable” scientists and engineers the longer the fate of federally-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. remains up in the air, Hawthorne warned last week. “Shame on us if we just let them drift away.”

That red flag ought to focus minds in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, as Ottawa buzzes with election speculation. And it should galvanize Premier Dalton McGuinty, who also faces voters this year. Neither will want to look negligent on this file. They ought to put their heads together to see whether they can come up with a credible, affordable plan to backstop AECL, rather than allow it to fail through an inability to work together.

CANDU is a crown jewel of Canadian technology. There are 34 CANDU reactors here and in six other countries, plus 16 more based on the same design, that have been built or are under construction.

The McGuinty government forecasts that Ontario will still rely on nuclear reactors for 46 per cent of our electricity in 2030, not much below the 52 per cent it provides now. So Queen’s Park is mulling a $33-billion plan over 20 years to refurbish 10 reactors at Darlington and Bruce to extend their service lives, and to build two more at Darlington. That’s the only way to keep the industrial heartland humming.

While Ontario would prefer to buy next-generation CANDU reactors (the ACR 1000) from AECL, the Conservative government has put the company up for sale, though there are no takers yet. It’s unclear whether buyers would continue building and marketing reactors for use in Canada and abroad, or fall back on servicing existing ones. And there’s no assurance that Ottawa will provide the guarantees that McGuinty understandably seeks against cost overruns if Queen’s Park buys technology from AECL that is still on the drawing board. McGuinty can’t be expected to bet the farm on this.

Rightly, the premier has proposed that the two processes be merged, ensuring that AECL remains a going concern by selling Ontario the reactors it needs. That would preserve Canada’s CANDU technology and save jobs. Certainly, that idea is worth a searching look. Acting together, Ottawa and Ontario have considerable clout. The only other option for Ontario is to opt for foreign technology.

Given the cost of building reactors and the possibility of unforeseen cost overruns, Harper can’t reasonably expect Ontario’s deficit-burdened taxpayers alone to shoulder the entire risk for salvaging a national enterprise. Not when Canada’s nuclear power industry has been a federal/provincial partnership from the get-go. And not given the contribution that Ontario makes to the nation’s economic well-being.

While the future of AECL and CANDU may be up in the air, nuclear power is undeniably a global growth industry. Other countries are planning to invest $1 trillion or more building hundreds of new reactors over the next two decades. Risk-averse though they may be, Canadian policy-makers should think twice before ruling us out of that burgeoning market.

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