DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE SAFEGUARDS REGULATORY DOCUMENT FOR THE CANADIAN NUCLEAR INDUSTRY

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is the nuclear regulatory authority in Canada and has the mandate to ensure the successful implementation of the Canada-IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol (hereafter, the safeguards agreements). The CNSC uses a variety of regulatory tools to implement safeguards requirements. Such tools include, among others, regulations, licence conditions, and regulatory documents (CNSC REGDOCs). Regulations and licences typically contain high-level requirements, whereas REGDOCs contain detailed requirements and guidance and must be cited in the licensing basis in order to have effect. Currently the CNSC uses regulatory document RD- 336 Accounting and Reporting of Nuclear Material to place safeguards requirements on appropriate licensees. As part of the CNSC’s policy to review regulatory documents on 5-year intervals, a review of RD-336 was undertaken in 2016. The decision was made to transform it from a document specific to nuclear materials accounting reports to one which includes all safeguards requirements. The opportunity was also taken to reduce reporting requirements and to introduce graded safeguards requirements wherever possible. A drafting team composed of safeguards experts and regulatory policy experts engaged in a year-long drafting process which included multiple internal reviews by CNSC staff and management, followed by an external review and consultation process.