Ottawa seeks bidders for Candu business; Government moves to privatize Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada's nuclear-reactor division

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Toronto Star
18 December 2009
Tyler Hamilton

Ottawa figuratively hung a "for- sale" sign Thursday on embattled nuclear-reactor designer Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., signalling to prospective investors that the federal government is now accepting formal bids for the crown corporation's commercial Candu business.

And it's not leaving any scenario off the table.

 SPEA held a press conference yesterday to release this survey to the media.  Peter White, Mike Ivanco, Marius Vartolomei, and Michelle Duncan travelled to Ottawa to deliver our message, and SPEA has received a fair bit of coverage as a result. 

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Spea-1061538.html

Oct 19, 2009 10:31 ET

Government's own study concludes Canadians oppose AECL privatization

Natural Resources Canada
2009/50
May 28, 2009

OTTAWA — The Government of Canada is moving forward with restructuring Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to take full advantage of the revitalized global nuclear industry. This decision follows an exhaustive Review of AECL.

Dear members,

Please sign the petition "Pick CANDU" at www.pickcandu.ca/. It is important to all show our support to CANDU technology. Let your family and friends know about it.

Together we CANDU in Ontario!

Your SPEA Executive

On Wednesday, March 4th, Michael Ivanco met with members of the board of the Central Ontario Building Trades Eastern Region at their offices in Bowmanville. They represent most of the tradespersons who would be doing the work at a Darlington new build. Although they will get a lot of work regardless of who builds, AECL, Areva or Westinghouse. Michael offered compelling reasons why they should support CANDU.

The Mississauga and Brampton Board of Trade held a luncheon with Stephen Harper. Harper provided and update of Canada’s economy and parts of the budget, in response to the quarterly updates asked for by the opposition. Key points at the meeting were that Canada is in a much better postion than the US, and more so than Europe and Japan (2x, 4x respectively). After his speech, L. Zsidai and M. Zimny, President of Promation, went and spoke briefly to Harper. L. Zsidai was introduced by Bob Dechert, Mississauga Erin-dale MP.

Mike Ivanco and a representative of the United Steelworkers at Cameco met with part of the NDP's Ontario caucus. 4 MPPs and several of their staff, including ex leader Howard Hampton, came and listened to their presentations and engaged in some lively discussion. The gist of Mike's presentation was that we are aware that your party is anti-nuclear but the nuclear vs. non-nuclear decision in Ontario has been made. The question now is a different one, namely do you support Canadian technology or not.

SPEA will attend the Canadian Nuclar Association (CNA) Nuclear Industry Conference and Trade Show 2009, in Ottawa, ON, February 25-27 2009. http://www.cna.ca/english/seminar2009/index_e.asp
The CNA conference is a great opportunity for SPEA to meet other nuclear industry key players and promote Canadian nuclear technology.