Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening and thank you all so much for the invitation. It's an honour to appear here.

McMaster is Canada's nuclear university. It's home to the McMaster nuclear reactor, which is the largest research reactor in the country. Our reactor is not a small modular reactor—our output is not energy; it's neutrons for research and isotope production—but it's similar in size to small SMRs and has been a central part of our campus for over 60 years.

The McMaster nuclear reactor supplies 60% of the world's iodine-125, a medical isotope used to treat prostate and other cancers. Every year we produce enough to treat more than 70,000 patients around the world.

This five-megawatt research reactor is the only research reactor in the world that does not rely on government funding to operate. It operates on a self-sustaining, cost-recovery basis through commercial operations, and serves as a key economic driver, supporting industry and resulting in multiple spinoff biopharmaceutical companies.

These unique strengths, coupled with the co-location of other cutting-edge nuclear research facilities, make McMaster extremely well equipped to be a partner in the deployment of SMRs. It's with that in mind that McMaster was pleased to contribute a chapter to the government's SMR action plan, which noted that we would be exploring the potential of hosting an SMR on or near our campus. This would represent the very first community demonstration deployment of an SMR in Canada.

Just a few weeks ago, McMaster announced that we would be taking the next steps to scope this potential development in partnership with Global First Power and the Ultra Safe Nuclear corporation. This would involve a micro modular reactor—a very small SMR—as the heart of an integrated community energy and harvesting system.

As this committee well knows, significant hurdles lie ahead of us as Canada seeks to realize the promise of secure, clean, reliable and flexibly deployed power through SMRs. Pressing issues include research and development needs, as well as workforce capacity building.

On the R and D front, McMaster has unique facilities capable of testing materials under irradiation and at high temperatures, as well as providing support in the manufacturing of items with novel materials. We're working with SMR vendors such as Westinghouse on getting our facilities and experts to work on development areas, including material testing, fuel development, safety analysis and waste disposal relevant to SMR deployment. In fact, we're currently seeking federal support for increased availability of neutrons for neutron beam research and irradiations that will further enhance our ability to support SMR development.

As an academic institution whose primary mission includes the education of the next generation of scientific talent and professionals, we of course host nuclear training programs and have developed curricula to ensure that Canada has the necessary expertise. For example, McMaster is home to the nuclear education, skills and technology initiative, which is part of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency and which teaches practical skills related to SMR development and management. We also deliver the small modular advanced reactor training program—the SMART CREATE program.

This sort of training and skills development will become even more critical as Canada not only successfully develops and deploys SMRs, but also operates and maintains them long term. We need to do more and we need to move more quickly across Canada to enable SMRs to play their vital role in achieving net zero by 2050.

To that end, I want to take a moment to mention that we have been pleased to see the focus that governments at all levels have been putting on SMR development to date. These actions demonstrate a clear commitment by governments to developing SMRs. They are to be commended, but as we look to deliver on the promise of this technology, McMaster proposes that next steps should involve efforts to leverage existing nuclear assets, such as the McMaster nuclear reactor, more effectively.

A comprehensive research and development plan that bridges government facilities with private and institutional laboratories, utilities, vendors, suppliers and academia should be put in place to facilitate the coordinated efforts needed to achieve these objectives. Similarly, it's essential that we begin now on a pan-Canadian strategy to begin building the workforce of tomorrow, which will deploy, operate, maintain and regulate the SMRs of the future and their associated infrastructure and clean energy systems. It's important that these be pan-Canadian efforts and that they be funded to ensure that national efforts yield national results.

With that, I thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward to answering your questions.

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