“Ninety-four percent of all nuclear reactors in the last decade were built by the Chinese or the Russians.” Ontario Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce used that figure on June 22 at a news conference in Newmarket, Ontario, where Canada launched its Nuclear Energy Strategy.
Federal, provincial and industry officials shared the stage. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said in a statement: “We are moving at speeds not seen in generations to get big things done and leveraging preexisting strengths to become a modern energy superpower.”
The strategy sets a ceiling of up to 10 new large-scale reactors in Canada by 2040. It rests on four pillars: new builds at home, keeping Canada’s standing as a top nuclear supplier and exporter, more uranium production, and continued work on fission and fusion.
The build schedule
Two reactors are to be under construction by 2035. Five more should be planned or in development by 2040. At least one project outside Ontario is to be operating or under construction by 2035, and a microreactor is to be demonstrated by that date and installed in a rural community by the late 2030s.
The CANDU pressurized heavy water design gets a refresh too. The strategy wants a “modernized, cost-competitive” version ready by 2030. To pay for all of it, Canada will have to draw in private financing, bring Indigenous communities in more fully and streamline the nuclear regulatory framework, the document says.
Exports and uranium
CANDU technology already runs 26 reactors in six countries, according to the government’s news release: 17 in Canada and nine in South Korea, China, Romania, Argentina and India. Canada also mined about 24 percent of the world’s uranium in 2024, and about 90 percent of it was sold abroad.
The goals for 2040 are to win CANDU sales in at least four new countries and to open talks with another 6 to 10 “new nuclear entrant markets.” Canadian suppliers should also land “significant Canadian supply chain participation” in at least five international non-CANDU projects. Getting there, the strategy says, takes a “unified Team Canada approach.” Work on the CANDU projects in Romania and China is meant to continue.
On uranium, the plan is to double exports between 2024 and 2035, helped by new mine production expected by 2035. Fuel supply chains for every Canadian reactor are to be secured by 2032. The strategy also wants waste planning to keep pace with new reactors, and backs projects such as the Deep Geological Repository. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization sent the government an initial project description this year for a repository to hold Canada’s spent nuclear fuel.
Research money
Private-sector nuclear R&D spending ran between C$200 million and C$300 million (about $140.7 million to $211.1 million) a year from 2019 to 2023. The strategy asks for C$500 million to C$700 million (about $351.8 million to $492.5 million) by 2032. Other targets include a Gen IV microreactor demonstration by 2035 and a radioisotope strategy to raise Canada’s share of the medical isotope market by at least 10 percent.
The strategy’s closing section is blunt about the clock: “Hesitation is not a neutral choice; it is a decision to cede ground that will be difficult to recover.”
