June 28, 2026
Version Published in Canadian Dimension, July 1, 2026
The past week has been defined by a series of announcements from Ottawa that seemed to commit Canada to an overwhelmingly nuclear power-based pathway for its electricity future. The federal government tabled a Nuclear Energy Strategy for Canada, committing, among other things, to 10 large new reactor projects. It also announced its intention to designate a high level nuclear waste repository as a “Project of National Interest (PONI) for accelerated approvals under the provisions of Bill C-5. Ontario, for its part, joined Ottawa in financing a $700 million investment by the Williams Treaty First Nations in a small reactor project at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington Site.
Although presented as a definitive pathway towards making Canada an ‘energy superpower’ the announcements raised at least as many technical, economic, security, and environmental questions as they claimed to answer. The key areas of concern include the following.
Technical and economic viability
At its core, the federal plan proposes to pursue the construction of up to ten large scale new reactors in Canada, with two under construction by 2035, and five more planned or under development by 2040, including one deployment “outside of Ontario.”
Questions around this strategy arise immediately. The plan identifies no specific locations for these projects, or reactor technologies that are to be employed. Indeed, it makes clear that even under the most optimistic scenarios no modern cost-competitive Canadian reactors design (likely the 1000MW CANDU MONARK derivative of earlier CANDU designs) will be available before the end of the decade.
Among other things this implies the need for Canada’s nuclear strategy to rely on non-Canadian reactor designs. Although it’s being aggressively promoted to potential international customers, the MONARK design remains incomplete. The situation has already led the proponent of a project in Alberta to switch their proposal to favour the AP1000 design by Westinghouse Electric.
The 300MW small modular reactor (SMR) currently under construction at the Darlington site in Ontario, and the lone example of an SMR under construction in the OECD, is the US and Japanese designed GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300. Although the federal plan references currently non-existent “micro reactors,” it is remarkably silent on the future role of SMRs, the previous centrepiece of federal and provincial nuclear strategies. This could be an acknowledgement of the ongoing concerns over the economic and technical viability of SMRs.
The larger US designed Westinghouse Electric AP1000 is also under consideration for the expansion of the Bruce Nuclear power plant on Lake Huron, a proposed 10,000-MW Ontario Power Generation plant at Wesleyville on Lake Ontario, and a large reactor project under consideration in New Brunswick.
Beyond its implicit reliance on non-Canadian designed (and manufactured) reactors, the federal strategy is noticeably silent on the likely costs of its heavily nuclear dependent pathway, or how those expenses might be financed.
This is unsurprising, as costs remain a central challenge for nuclear power projects. The costs of two 1,100 MW AP1000 reactors, completed in 2024 at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia came in at US$36 billion, or about $26 billion per reactor in 2026 Canadian dollars. The plant has been described as “the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth.” When it went into service, Vogtle resulted in a nearly 24% increase in Georgia Power’s electricity rates, the largest jump in the utility’s history.
The still incomplete CANDU MONARK design is currently reported to be being pitched to Poland, with a reported estimated cost of $45 to $50 billion for a three-reactor plant, or about $15 billion per unit. In Ontario, there is already rising alarm over the province’s $400 billion nuclear expansion plans and their implications of its costs for competitiveness, affordability and decarbonization through electrification. That province is already spending between $7 and $8.5 billion per year on, electricity rate subsidies, in part to hide the costs of its nuclear program from electricity ratepayers. These costs now account for more than half of Ontario’s deficit, and exceed its annual capital expenditures on education and health care by wide margins.
In light of these enormous cost risks, and the long history of major cost overruns and delays on nuclear projects, private capital was been reluctant to engage, even when offered generous subsidies and liability protection for accidents, waste management and decommissioning costs. The Williams Treaties First Nations investment announced on June 23, remains the only independent financial commitment the Darlington SMR project. Even there, the underlying funds are being provided by Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
For the smaller provinces, like New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, that have been reported to be considering the possibility of large nuclear projects, such pathways would involve enormous financial risks. Single large reactors in a relatively small electricity systems would repeat and magnify key problems associated with the original Point Lepreau project in New Brunswick —putting a very high portion of a province’s electricity supply eggs in a single, very expensive and high-risk basket.
Uranium Enrichment, Energy Security and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
A second crucial element of the federal plan’s openness to non-Canadian reactor designs is the consideration that, unlike the original CANDU design, reactors like the AP1000 and BWRX-300 rely on enriched uranium nuclear fuel, which Canada does not currently produce. The ability of CANDU reactors to use unenriched nuclear fuel was intended to enable an all-Canadian fuel supply chain, and avoid direct engagement with fuel enrichment processes that are intimately connected with nuclear weapons development. The dual use nature of nuclear fuel enrichment processes was, for example, the core rationale for the US-Isreal-Iran war. The adoption of reactor designs reliant on enriched uranium could introduce a dependency on non-Canadian fuel sources, most likely the United States.
The federal plan’s response to this concern is to casually reverse a foundational principle of the Canadian nuclear program, and to open the door to nuclear fuel enrichment in Canada. This apparently would be not only to supply non-Canadian designed reactors operating in Canada, but also for export to other countries.
At the same time, the strategy is silent on the matter of nuclear weapons non-proliferation. This is despite the demonstrated risk of Canadian uranium exports being used for nuclear weapons development, as infamously occurred with India in the 1970s. Canada has recently agreed to resume nuclear exports to that country, despite the consideration that it has not ratified the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nuclear Waste and PONIs
The federal nuclear strategy provides a discussion of Canada’s nuclear waste management “ecosystem.” The strategy’s publication was followed shortly by an announcement of the federal government’s intention to designate the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed deep nuclear waste fuel repository near Ignace, Ontario, a “Project of National Interest” (PONI) for the purposes of Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act. Such a designation would provide for a streamlined and accelerated approvals process for the project. The project was originally intended to house the estimated 3.3 million CANDU waste fuel bundles currently in storage at reactor sites in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Its scope has subsequently expanded to include all types of waste nuclear fuels, including from reactors using enriched uranium. The project has prompted deep public opposition in Northwestern Ontario.
It is important to note that the provisions of Bill C-5 state (Part II, s.6(1)) that “Every determination and finding that has to be made and every opinion that has to be formed in order for an authorization to be granted in respect of a national interest project is deemed to be made or formed, as the case may be, in favour of permitting the project to be carried out in whole or in part.” This means that even if federal regulatory staff identify problems with a project it is to be approved regardless.
This sets up an exceptionally dangerous situation, particularly with respect to nuclear projects that will be ‘first of kind’ -never built or operated before in Canada or, in some cases, globally. The concerns over the handling nuclear projects under these provisions were reinforced by the federal government’s May 2026 proposals that where concerns are identified with nuclear projects, approvals would be provided by the federal cabinet rather than the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This would effectively enable the cabinet to authorize nuclear projects even in the face of serious technical or safety problems.
Paths Forward
Analyses have suggested that Canada’s achievement of a net zero emission target by 2050 through electrification could require a two-to-three-fold increase in electricity generation by mid-century. Addition growth in demand is projected from new industries as well, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centres.
The federal strategy suggests an overwhelmingly nuclear response to these needs, while ignoring the accelerating global movement in the direction of renewable energy. Instead, the federal nuclear strategy would put Canada on high-cost, high-risk energy trajectory of its own, and in a moment of intense global stresses on geopolitical and energy security, reinforce the faltering of nuclear weapons arms limitation and non-proliferation regimes.
An electricity strategy rooted in energy productivity, and renewable energy expansion, supported by making optimal use of new and existing energy storage capacity, regional interties and grid management technologies, remains Canada’s best option for decarbonization, affordability, competitiveness and sustainability.