Updated March 30, 2023
Important update: VICTORY! Included within the 2023 Federal Budget are brand new allowances for CANDU (large nuclear) and for refurbishment projects spearheaded by the advocacy of Canadians for Nuclear Energy. Read more about it here.
Additional update: On June 9, 2023, The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, responded to this petition, stating that "Tax support would... extend to proven technologies that offer predictable non-emitting base-load power, like large-scale nuclear, which could include CANDU reactors." Read the full response here.
On November 3, 2022, the federal government announced a 30 percent “Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit” to drive spending on a range of energy technologies, notably adding in small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Including SMRs was a bold step for the government given its historically lukewarm positions on nuclear energy. However, CANDU technology, which underpins the existing Canadian nuclear sector, was left out of the tax credit.
Canadians for Nuclear Energy (C4NE) launched an officially sponsored petition to the federal government urging the correction of this oversight, which C4NE President Dr. Chris Keefer argued in the Financial Post amounts to a "bizarre form of reverse protectionism."
The petition, which closed to signatures on January 17, 2023, garnered the signatures of 9,075 Canadians who call to make our irreplaceable CANDU technology eligible for same incentives as other low-carbon energy technologies.
Whereas:
The Government of Canada is making a generational investment by providing a 30% investment tax credit to eligible clean technology projects;
The tax credit currently excludes existing and new CANDU technology which underpins the entire operating Canadian nuclear supply chain and nuclear fleet;
Disadvantaging CANDU relative to other clean technologies limits climate action and the Canadian economy, which benefits from an unmatched economic multiplier effect of $1.40 in GDP for every dollar invested due to the 96% made-in-Canada CANDU supply chain;
The CANDU refurbishments at Bruce, Darlington and most likely Pickering Nuclear stations are vital to the preservation for a further 30-40 years of Canada’s second largest source of zero carbon;
Twenty-two CANDU reactors, 19 of which currently represent 15% of Canada’s total electricity generation, were commissioned in just over 20 years, proving that CANDU nuclear is a scalable, rapid, deep decarbonisation tool;
CANDU nuclear has been ranked as one of Canada’s top ten engineering achievements and has among the lowest lifecycle emissions of any energy source at 5gCO2/kWh, one half that of wind and solar.
CANDU nuclear provided 90% of the power to permanently remove coal from the Ontario grid, an achievement hailed as North America’s greatest greenhouse gas reduction; and
CANDU nuclear has a proven track record as a successful Canadian export, assisting partner countries in decreasing their reliance on fossil fuels.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to include CANDU nuclear refurbishments and CANDU new build projects within the Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit.
Comments