PORT HOPE, Ont. - Ontario's nuclear ambitions will not be derailed by a reported $26-billion price tag for two new reactors and the province remains confident Ottawa will secure a better bid from Crown-owned AECL, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.
"It's expensive so we've got to keep talking," McGuinty said while touring a health centre in this eastern Ontario town. "The purpose of the discussion is to land at something that's more affordable for us."
McGuinty wouldn't discuss the details of a bid to build two new reactors in Darlington, east of Toronto. Still, he didn't refute reports that the costs had more than tripled from early estimates to $26 billion -- a total that would wipe out the whole amount budgeted for nuclear expansion in the province.
Nuclear remains a viable option that the province will continue to pursue, McGuinty said. He urged Ottawa to take into account the future of Canada's domestic nuclear industry as it "sharpens its pencils" to try to help top bidder AECL come up with a more competitive deal.
"There is a lot at stake here. It's not just the reliability of electricity supply in the province of Ontario -- it's also about the future of a pretty important domestic industry," he said during a second stop in Brighton, Ont.
The spectre of Ottawa using public money to secure a better deal for Ontario has raised the ire of Greenpeace, which urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to say no to what it said would amount to a $20-billion nuclear bailout.
"Greenpeace identified the likelihood of an enormous cost escalation nine months ago, but there was only silence from the McGuinty government," said Greenpeace analyst Shawn-Patrick Stensil.
"Why should taxpayers in Alberta and Newfoundland bail out Ontario? That's simply irresponsible."
McGuinty was also nonplussed by negative federal comments about AECL. Officials with Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt have said any discussions about costs rested with AECL, and there was nothing that would push Ottawa to get involved at this stage.
Just last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman called Atomic Energy of Canada a dysfunctional, $30-billion "sinkhole that will not get any more funding for a new research reactor."
"I don't think there's been a fair representation of the federal view in terms of what filtered into the media," McGuinty said.
"I think they are much more thoughtful and much more concerned about the long-term responsibilities we have with respect to AECL."
Ottawa plans to put AECL's nuclear reactor business up for sale, and the company's future is widely considered to be tied to a successful Ontario bid.
McGuinty also defended the spectre of cost increases, saying the government was simply trying "to be square with Ontarians" about the real cost of nuclear.
"Under previous projects we didn't find out about the high pricing until we were half or three-quarters of the way, or five years into the damn thing," McGuinty said.
"Now we're saying; Look, all in, what is this thing really going to cost us, if we take into account all the risks."
Last month, the province made the surprise announcement that the much-touted plan to add reactors at Darlington would be put on hold because of rising costs as well as a decline in electricity demand in the face of a "massive economic slowdown."
A spokeswoman for Energy Minister George Smitherman also declined to comment on the numbers, saying the cost was too complex "for a simple expression of a single number."
