INTERVIEW | DIANE CAMERON
V heft was not just in the head count. The team accomplished milestones on the national and international front, which have set the table for Canada’s nuclear sector’s future, should federal and provincial governments choose to pursue it. In Canada, constitutionally nuclear energy falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government. The government’s role spans across research and development, as well as regulation of nuclear materials and activities. The government’s nuclear priorities, and related legislation, are in health, safety, security and the environment. However, the decision as to which technologies to invest
in for electricity generation rests with the country’s 13 provinces and territories. To date, only two provinces use nuclear power though one of them, Ontario, is the country’s largest province. In in both Ontario and New Brunswick, nuclear is a major contributor to the grid. So, while nuclear accounts for only 15 per cent of Canada’s generation capacity, for more than 40 per cent of Canadians, the primary source of electricity is nuclear power. The nuclear industry hopes to expand on that. Cameron and her team believed there were some important reasons to help them. “The nuclear sector supports many different types of priorities: economic and innovation as well as environment, climate change and public health,” says Cameron. “The nuclear sector can support a range of different national priorities, so it was a question of starting to tell the story and framing Canada’s nuclear story (first) within the government’s other priorities.” Illustrative of their progress, has been several speeches
from the sector’s top elected official, NRCan Minister Seamus O’Regan who has delivered some of the most bullish speeches about nuclear in recent memory. He’s gone so far as to say, Canada cannot meet its net-zero carbon emissions without nuclear energy.
By the mid-2015s, with AECL’s nuclear division privatised and its national research programme and liabilities under private-sector management, NRCan’s nuclear division, could have coasted into babysitting mode. Cameron, however, is not that type of bureaucrat. Leading
up to and early in her tenure with NRCan, Cameron says, the evidence and modelling increasingly demonstrated the essential role nuclear could play in addressing climate change. She recognised the importance of contributing that evidence in broader policy conversations. In her role as director, she says, it was her job to move that forward because public service boils down to two over-riding points, fearless advice and loyal implementation. “The fearless advice is around bringing in a non-partisan,
non-partial evidence-based analysis and then (based on that), advice. Part of my role as a public servant was to make sure I surfaced and shone a light on a part of the conversation, that, not only in Canada but around the world was pretty quiet,” she says. “Many, many of these conversations were silent on nuclear. It is not as if they brought the nuclear option or evidence to the conversation and took a values-based decision against it. It was just silent. I saw that my role as a public servant, very clearly, was to ensure nuclear was positioned in those conversations.” Cameron’s background lent itself well to the task. When she joined NRCan, she had clocked seven years in Foreign Affairs serving as deputy director for trade and environment, from which she brought knowledge and contacts. She also brought a unique pairing of technical and social expertise. Cameron earned her undergraduate degree in systems engineering with a minor in society, technology and values, the latter reflecting a deep personal interest in social justice, likely inherited from her father and mentor, a professor in social work.
A trajectory of Canadian
nuclear policy 2014-2021 Diane Cameron served as the director of the Nuclear Division at Natural Resources Canada, a ministry of the government of Canada from May 2014 - February 2021. This timeline captures some highlights from her tenure.
2014
Diane Cameron takes the role as Director, Nuclear Division at Natural Resources Canada
2015 18 | August 2021 |
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The restructuring and partial privatization of crown corporation Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. is completed. It included the sale of the nuclear division (2011) to SNC-Lavalin and the creation of a government-owned, company-operated management model for the national nuclear laboratory and the Government’s decommissioning and waste obligations
2017
The Standing Committee of Natural Resources Canada report, “Nuclear at a Crossroads” was released as was the subsequent government response that helped to lay a blueprint for the following several years
2018
Canada releases its SMR Roadmap, a multi-stakeholder effort of more than 180 individuals representing 55 organisations across 10 sectors and subsectors, including multiple levels of government, civil society, academia and industry
2018
Canada, the United States and Japan create the NICE Future initiative launching it at a side event at the Clean Energy Ministerial hosted in Copenhagen and effectively introducing nuclear into climate change energy policy discussions
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