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Port Granby

Workers Need Assurances at Port Hope and Port Granby
Nuclear Waste Cleanup

By: Patrick Dillon, Business Manager – Provincial Building & Construction Trades Council of Ontario

Introduction radioactive waste. The decontamination project is called the Port
Building Trades workers know all-too-well, the human costs of Hope Area Initiative (PHAI). The federal government is in full control
complacency when it comes to workplace exposures and silent of every aspect of the project, including the remedial operations on
killers. For decades, construction workers were told that exposures the site where the work is taking place, the way in which the project
to asbestos, silicon dioxide, diesel fumes, uranium and other is regulated, and how the work is planned and procured.
carcinogens had no negative effects on their health. Those who
How the Project is Structured and Regulated
‘assured’ workers of their supposedly safe environments
The Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) is a federal operating agency
(employers, suppliers, inspectors, regulators) were not workers
overseeing a ten-year, $1.3 billion cleanup of 1.7 million cubic
themselves and were therefore insulated from such exposures.
meters of low-level radioactive waste in Port Hope and Port Granby,
Advances have been made from decades ago, but the same
Ontario. A legal agreement finalized in March 2001, between the
regulators who changed the exposure limits when scientific
Government of Canada, represented by the Department of Natural
evidence, measured in lives, showed that previous levels were in
Resources (NRCan) and the municipalities of Port Hope and
fact deemed unsafe, are now reassuring workers of the healthy and
Clarington launched the PHAI by establishing a mandate for the
safe limits that are in place today.
cleanup of historic radioactive waste that resulted from faulty
Unfortunately, the new exposure limits didn’t do anything to protect disposal by Eldorado Nuclear Ltd., a Crown Corporation, in the
the workers who had been subjected to the so-called ‘safe’ decades between the 1930s and 1970s.
exposures in the past. Those workers’ only recourse was to apply The federal government delegated authority for the project from
for benefits through the collective liability compensation system in Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to Canadian Nuclear
their province, which is largely paid for and controlled by employers Laboratories (CNL), originally a Crown Corporation that was
and regulators who themselves are never exposed, in the hope that ‘privatized’ by the Harper government. CNL is owned by the
financial compensation would ‘soften’ the blow of irreversible Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA), a consortium of three
damage to workers’ health and well-being. The legacy of decades private sector companies including Jacobs, Fluor, and SNC-Lavalin.
of mostly unintended deception has led to a situation in which The federal agency responsible for granting operating licences to
workers’ trust in regulators is understandably low. Worker CNL for both the Port Hope project and the Port Granby project is
scepticism needs to be addressed genuinely and constructively, by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) which regulates
employers and regulators. One way of helping to build the trust that Canada’s nuclear industry.
is needed, is to bring in bona fide, third-party, not-for-profit expertise
Section 8(2) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act states that the
that can verify what the regulators claim so that workers have
CNSC is an “agent” of “Her Majesty,” in other words, of
confidence that their working conditions are indeed safe.
government, and Section 10 of the Act provides that all members
Remedial action undertaken by the federal government, to cleanup of the CNSC are appointed by Cabinet and that the President is
radioactive waste that has been stored in Port Hope and Port “designated” by Cabinet. Moreover, Section 13 provides that all are
Granby for decades, is a case in point where Building Trades efforts paid by the government and Section 16 in effect deems all CNSC
are underway to try and secure independent, third-party, not-for- members and employees to be government employees for payment
profit verification and monitoring of workers’ exposures to low-level purposes.

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