Richard Ma of CIBC Capital Markets joins Tom Heintzman, Vice Chair, Energy & Climate Finance, to discuss the key takeaways from CIBC’s inaugural Nuclear Summit, including observations on the strategic importance of nuclear for Canada’s economic development.
Tom Heintzman: Welcome to The Sustainability Agenda, a podcast series focusing on the evolving complexities of the sustainability landscape. I'm your host, Tom Heintzman. Please join me as we explore today's most pressing issues with special guests that will give you some new perspectives and help you make sense of what really matters.
Richard Ma: Minister Neudorf had a really interesting comment. He said, electricity is the currency of the future. Megawatts are really going to be the limiting factor for economies and for society to be able to scale. That's the sort of perspective that really enables nuclear to have the social license and the political license to succeed.
Tom Heinztman: Welcome back listeners. Today's episode will focus on nuclear energy and in particular, the key takeaways from a recent nuclear conference convened by CIBC. Nuclear energy plays a critical role for Canada's economic future. Canada is the world's sixth largest producer of nuclear power and the Canadian industry and supply chain currently employs nearly 90,000 highly skilled workers, contributing 22 billion annually to Canada's GDP. In Ontario, more than 50 % of our electricity is produced from nuclear power. Those numbers will increase as the deployment of nuclear power accelerates both in Canada and worldwide. Recognizing the strategic importance of nuclear for Canada's economic development, CIBC hosted its inaugural Nuclear Summit in Toronto on March 5th, 2026. The event was attended by more than 300 people representing leaders and stakeholders collectively working to advance the nuclear industry. On today's episode, we'll explore the key takeaways from the event. I'm joined by my CIBC colleague, Richard Ma, an executive director in our capital markets energy infrastructure and transition team. He has extensive expertise in helping clients finance their energy infrastructure projects. Richard also moderated a panel at the summit on lessons from refurbishment and plans going forward. Good morning, Richard. Welcome and thanks for joining the show.
Richard Ma: Glad to be here. Thanks, Tom.
Tom Heintzman: Richard, it was quite a day. I was very impressed and you were one of the organizers, so hats off to you. The day started with opening remarks by CIBC's president and CEO, Harry Culham. Notably, he described nuclear energy as one of Canada's clear strategic advantages, citing Canada's leadership in refurbishing existing nuclear infrastructure, and developing small modular reactors. Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, the Honourable Tim Hodgson, went next and gave remarks discussing the federal vision for Canada's nuclear industry. That was followed subsequently by a fireside chat with both the Honourable Stephen Lecce, Minister of Energy and Mines in Ontario, and the Honourable Nathan Neudorf, Minister of Affordability and Utilities in Alberta, discussing opportunities for inter-provincial partnership and collaboration to unlock Canada's full nuclear potential. The panel topics during the day included lessons from the highly successful refurbishments of the Darlington and Bruce nuclear reactors, a discussion on advancements and integration of reactor technologies, fuel supply chain challenges and opportunities, perspectives from engineering and construction firms on priorities for a modern nuclear build-out, financing and investing in nuclear, and a call to action to secure Canada's nuclear advantage. So, quite a day all in all. Richard, let's start with your impressions of the overall event. Who was in the room and what feedback or discussions stood out most to you?
Richard Ma: Tom, one of the things that stood out to me was the attendees that we had in the room were all really engaged in the topic. I think it was really interesting to see a lot of the attendees coming from across the nation and also from other countries, including the US, all really interested in the topic of nuclear, in Canada. We had about an even mix of investors and industry participants, which was also great to see. It's exciting to see how much enthusiasm there is from the financiers out there who are looking to deploy capital into the sector. Candidly, when we were organizing the event, we didn't quite know how many people we'd get. So, I was very glad to see so many people in the room all focused on advancing the nuclear industry. In terms of the discussions in the room, I thought the panels were all excellent. We put a lot of competitors next to each other in these panel discussions. And we certainly had some conversations where folks were talking about their own advantages and advocating for themselves. But I thought those conversations unfolded in a very Canadian way. Everyone was very polite, very friendly. And at the end of the day, I think also recognized that we're all in this together. And I think that's one thing that I really appreciate about the nuclear industry is that there's this real sentiment of, the rising tide sort of lifts all boats and that one person's success, one competitor's success, can actually mean a benefit to everyone, including their other competitors. So I thought it was a great attitude, a great level of enthusiasm in the room. And had a lot of great conversations with folks after the event who were really appreciative of the candidness of the panel discussions that we had. Tom, this was CIBC's first event dedicated to nuclear energy. The turnout has far exceeded our original expectations. You were one of the key leaders in our team in terms of advocating for this event and planning it. Why was it important for us, for CIBC, to host this event now? And what makes this moment so pivotal for Canada's nuclear industry?
Tom Heintzman: Richard, I think it ties into some themes that we discuss a lot on this show. The first thing I would point to is the rising demand as a result of electrification for electricity in Ontario and Canada and frankly worldwide. And that's a product of a lot of the themes we discuss on this show, whether it's the electrification of transportation, electrification of buildings, so heat pumps, electrification of heavy industry, and then of course data centers and just general population growth. So you've got rising demand and nuclear energy already constitutes or provides more than 50% of the power in Ontario and is meaningful in a few other provinces as well. So there's a clear question about what the role will be for nuclear going forward. We're kind of at this hinge moment, I guess, as the prime minister would like to say and after 20 years of relatively flat-lined growth in the electricity industry, now it's ticking up upwards materially. So we have to figure out how to meet that demand. We then had successful refurbishments at Darlington and Bruce, and I think the whole industry and perhaps the country was on bated breath to see how those refurbishments would go. But they have both Bruce and the Darlington, Darlington's almost complete, the fourth unit is scheduled to be commissioned in early 2026. They've been on time, on time and under budget in certain cases, certainly on budget. And so, the track record is now getting proven out, at least as far as refurbishments go. And then there are the new nuclear commitments or projects that are under development and that would include the four SMRs at Darlington, the Pickering refurbs of units five to eight, then Wesleyville, which has the potential to be enormous, up to 10,000 megawatts, and Bruce C., which is slated for close to 5,000 megawatts. So this is a key time in the industry, lots of rising demand, lots of need for new generation and lots of questions about and plans and shovels in the ground in terms of the role of nuclear. So Richard, maybe back to you, you moderated a panel on lessons learned from the refurbishments of Darlington and Bruce reactor projects. I just touched on them. Can you summarize who was on your panel and what your key observations and takeaways were from that panel on refurbishment?
Richard Ma: I had the pleasure of being joined by Boris Vulanovic, Senior Vice President for the Darlington SMR Execution Project from OPG, and Pat Dalzell, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Development at Bruce Power. These two leaders are real visionaries in terms of the refurbishment projects, and they're actively executing on the refurbishments that we're all so proud of, I think as a province and as a country. Boris was actually on the Darlington refurbishment project and saw that project to completion and was a leading figure behind OPGs ahead of schedule and under budget execution of that major nuclear project. And so I think it was really interesting to hear from him as he transitions from Darlington, which is now complete, and onto the SMR project. He’s going to bring a significant amount of expertise and when we talk about lessons learned, I think one thing that he really articulated was the fact that the lessons learned, they stay with the people that worked on the projects. And I think he's actually a great example of a really critical employee transferring over from one project and bringing everything that he's learned from the Darlington refurbishment and executing and implementing it at the SMR project. So he’s one employee, but there's a ton of OPG team members who are all making that transition. And I think that's one of the key benefits we have as a province is that we have this really incredible team of professionals and tradespeople in the nuclear sector who are able to build careers around nuclear. We've got so much activity, so much visibility on future nuclear in the province that we've got people who are able to work on multiple units, multiple projects over a career in nuclear. And I think that's really what is allowing or part of what's allowing, OPG and Bruce Power to deliver on their projects, repeatably on time, on budget, or even better. One thing that Pat mentioned, which I thought was really interesting, was a bit of the history of refurbishments in Ontario. The province at one point recognized the importance of a fleet-based approach to refurbishment, and Pat talked about the fact that OPG and Bruce Power and the province all got together and agreed that the best path forward was to refurbish 10 units in Ontario across both OPG and Bruce Power. And a collaboration between OPG and Bruce to take lessons learned from Bruce's original refurbishment of units one and two, and to apply those lessons to all 10 units that were going to be refurbished. And I think the end result, as we're seeing today, is an unprecedented level of collaboration leading to a real achievement between OPG and Bruce in terms of being able to refurbish their projects on time and on budget. And I think that's something that the nuclear industry and the world are really trying to learn from and emulate. Here's a fun fact, bit of behind the scenes. I was having a quick chat with Boris and Pat ahead of the panel. Pat told me, well, he said, Richard, you know what I'm going to talk about in my panel discussion? I'm going to talk about Guns and N’ Roses. Talking about how his experience, attempting to play a solo from Guns N' Roses, Sweet Child of Mine, was a parallel to the refurbishment experience in Ontario and how it was really a matter of practice. I suspect that next time we host this event, we're going to have Pat taking us off with a bit of a guitar solo at the beginning of the conference, which I'm really looking forward to. Tom, you got to summarize the day and close out the event. At a high level what did you think would be most important for our listeners to be aware of?
Tom Heintzman: Richard, there were three points that stood out for me. First of all, most of my career has been spent in renewable energy, not in nuclear. So I'm a relative newbie to the nuclear world. Being in the room surrounded by, more than 300 from all parts of the sector, people representing the fuel and the fuel supply chain, the reactor technology, balance of plant engineering, even the off-takers in the room. I was struck by the extent to which the supply chain exists in Canada. In renewable energy, most of the manufacturing is done offshore and it would be only the very end of the supply chain that's here in Canada. Whereas in Ontario or in Canada, 80% of the value of a project, or thereabouts, stays within the country. And that's because we've built up these supply chains and businesses supporting the industry, so I was really struck by the extent to which it's end-to-end, the Canadian capability in nuclear. The second thing I was struck by and you touched on it is it was the collaboration amongst them. So it's not only that we have lots of companies in all different sectors supporting the industry, but they work very effectively amongst each other. You gave the example of Bruce and OPG coordinating on the refurbs, and the coordination went further than that. They would have flooded the market in terms of their demands if they had been run at the same time, but instead, there was a staggering that allowed all of the trades and everybody else who's required in order to support the projects to deliver without being overwhelmed. Great collaboration even amongst competitors in the industry. And then the last thing I took away was, in business school, you hear the theory of economic or industrial clusters where certain areas of the world will develop a real expertise in a certain industry. So whether it's the Swiss watches or Italian fashion or Silicon Valley for tech, and many others they're often pointed to in business schools. I don't know whether it's with intention or inadvertently, but through our reliance on nuclear going back to really the 70s, that we've built up this supply chain and this expertise and these technologies that really make Canada quite unique across the world in terms of being an industrial cluster for the nuclear industry. And that was brought home powerfully for me by having many of these people in the same room last week. So Richard, we could probably keep going for some time here, but we do need to close it up, so I'll ask you one final question. You work with many clients looking to finance energy infrastructure projects. We're seeing growing momentum for nuclear investments, both in Canada and globally. In your view, what are the critical factors needed to truly scale the industry and ensure nuclear can deliver on its promise for Canada's energy future?
Richard Ma: Thanks, Tom. I don't think nuclear can be built without adequate support from the government. And I think it's been extremely motivating to see the amount of support that the industry has been receiving from all levels of government here in Canada, both from the federal and the provincial level. We saw that in terms of Minister Hodgson, Minister Neudorf and Minister Lecce, all attending our event and providing their remarks and their support of the industry. I think it's great to see. I think Minister Neudorf had a really interesting comment. He said, electricity is the currency of the future. And he talked about how megawatts are really going to be the limiting factor for economies and for society to be able to scale into the future. And I think that's the sort of perspective that really enables nuclear to have the social license and the political license to succeed. Then Mr. Lecce talked about the Ontario vision for nuclear and how he actually sees it as increasing from its current 50% level to, I believe he said 75%, in the future. And so having that vision from the government about future nuclear builds, about adding 15 gigawatts of nuclear in Ontario as an example, is really important because it allows companies who are interested in building nuclear to plan on fleet-based approaches to building nuclear and to avoid making every project the first of its kind. I think we also need capital flowing into nuclear, it’s really looking for support from government because there are a lot of externalities, positive externalities that come along with nuclear. We talk about how there's 90,000 plus highly skilled workers working on nuclear in Canada, about how it contributes $22 billion to Canada's GDP. And those are all really, really important considerations when, when we talk about building nuclear, but they don't always get reflected in the economics of a private capital or private sort of sector investors, Excel model. And so those sorts of externalities need to be reflected in our decision-making, but they aren't always captured when proponents, think about building a nuclear. And so I think as we sit here today, that's where this intersection between private sector and government really needs to work together to enable new nuclear to be built out. As the industry scales, as we look forward in time, hopefully there will be a point where fleet-based approaches to building nuclear and economies of scale will kick in. And a lot of people really believe in this. At some point, those economies of scale should kick in and we should see the cost of nuclear get lower and lower. It's not too dissimilar from what happened to wind and solar over the past few decades. And at some point, there will no longer need to be a significant amount of government support. Right? It should become more of a commodity. But at this point in time, there needs to be support to get the ball rolling. And so I think that's what we're looking to the government for. And I'm personally very excited to see the current level of support that we're seeing from all of our leaders.
Tom Heintzman: Well, Richard, I think we'll wrap it up here. Thanks for taking time to join the show today and thank you to the listeners for tuning in. Please join us next time as we tackle some of sustainability's biggest questions, providing you different perspectives to help you move forward. I'm your host, Tom Heintzman, and this is The Sustainability Agenda.
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