Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

A great buying opportunity

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 11:00am - 5 Comments

Data contained in a Parliamentary Budget Office report raises questions about the government’s sale of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. — the financially troubled Crown corporation whose commercial operations are being sold to SNC-Lavalin — received approximately $183 million in government payments in the first quarter alone, nearly double its $102 million voted budget for the entire 2011-12 fiscal year.

Approximately $114 million of that government funding was invested in the spun-off nuclear reactor division that was sold in the same quarter for only $15 million plus royalties to SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based engineering and construction giant.

Tags: aecl, nuclear energy, SNC-Lavalin

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Anonymous

SNC-Lavalin is a whole can of worms by itself. Investigative journalism should be all over this. It’s big.
Anonymous

Can’t figure out if that should have been declared as an election expense or claimed as an RRSP contribution.
Anonymous

Ah. So NOW I understand how it is that nuclear reactors can be built with an ‘all-in’ price bid. They’ve already been given the equivalent of many project’s cost-overruns.
MostlyCivil

A real world example:

It’s like my car dealership offering me a free one bedroom condo with each car I buy.
Anonymous

Congratulations on getting rid of the AECL money-pit!! Should have been done years ago.

“SAINT JOHN, N.B. – The refurbishment of Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear power plant —some three years behind schedule — has taken another step toward completion.
NB Power says all 380 calandria tubes have been successfully installed in the heart of the Point Lepreau reactor and tested.
The calandria tubes contain pressure tubes, which in turn, hold the uranium fuel bundles used to power the reactor.
An earlier effort to install the new tubes failed when tiny scratches caused by wire brushes raised concerns the joints might not be reliable for 25 years.
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has run into numerous problems during the refurbishment, which is $1 billion over budget.
When the project started, the reactor was expected to be back in service in the fall of 2009.
NB Power says it now expects to have the power plant up and running by the fall of 2012.
Last month, the federal government announced a deal to sell AECL to Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin Group (TSX:SNC).”