OTTAWA — The federal government’s new nuclear energy strategy is full of praise for the Candu reactors that currently produce all of Canada’s atomic power, but the makers of its key competitor see a chance to bury them.

“I think the realization that it’s not the federal government’s choice, that it’s provinces who decide what the most appropriate technology is, is important,” said Grant Isaac, president and chief operating officer of Saskatchewan uranium mining company Cameco, in an interview with The Logic.

In partnership with Brookfield, Cameco has owned the U.S.-born nuclear company Westinghouse since 2022. It’s pitching the company’s AP1000 reactors for large nuclear-power projects in Canada and around the world over the Candu Monark, the government-owned technology currently licensed to Canadian engineering giant AtkinsRéalis. 

Many billions of dollars are at stake as governments electrify their economies. Both Westinghouse and AtkinsRéalis want to capture the Canadian market for new reactors, partly for its own sake and partly to show off their success to other potential customers.

The competition between the two raises philosophical questions about what makes a company Canadian.

The plan that Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson released Monday acknowledges that Westinghouse’s reactors are part of Canada’s “technology base,” but it tilts profoundly toward the Candu.

The strategy talks about finishing the next-generation Candu design (behind which Canada has put hundreds of millions of dollars already) by 2030 and finding up to 10 new countries to buy it, and touts Ontario’s recent successes in refurbishing existing units. Candu technology, in particular, “delivers genuine energy sovereignty to partner nations,” the document says.

In all, “Candu” appears 42 times in the strategy; “Westinghouse” three times. AtkinsRéalis welcomed that emphasis enthusiastically in a news release.

Isaac shrugged it off as pride in the Candu heritage, not a meaningful gauge of what’s to come. “If you didn’t have Candu featured in Canada’s nuclear strategy, it was not going to exist in anybody else’s globally,” he said.

That might not be quite true: Seventeen Candu reactors are the backbone of Canadian nuclear power, but Romania has two older Candu reactors and is planning to buy two new ones. It operates no other kind. Older Candu reactors are in service in South Korea, China, India and Argentina as well.

Six of Westinghouse’s current-generation AP1000s are in use today, while AtkinsRéalis’s answer, the Monark, is still on the drawing board. A “first of a kind” nuclear power plant, such as the Monark, is a hard sell, Isaac said.

“Having a design-ready, already licensed, already regulated, already deployed reactor—that, by the way, is owned by Canadian companies—is a pretty powerful example of Canada’s nuclear energy strategy,” he said.

Brookfield—whose parent company is based in Toronto, though its main subsidiary Brookfield Asset Management officially moved its head office to New York in 2024—owns 51 per cent of Westinghouse. Cameco owns the other 49 per cent.

Canadian-owned though Westinghouse is, its headquarters is in Pennsylvania. Canada explicitly sees Candu reactors as instruments of foreign policy; the United States sees Westinghouse’s products the same way. Cameco and Brookfield even struck a deal with the U.S. government last fall that could see it take a 20 per cent ownership share of the company if Westinghouse sells a lot of reactors there.

The Trump administration is helping it do so, as part of the government’s “energy dominance” goal, with a conditional US$17.5-billion loan commitment announced Tuesday. Last fall, Cameco advertised the extent of Westinghouse’s American workforce and supply chains.

Build a Westinghouse reactor in Canada, Isaac said, and “it’s probably going to have the same level of localization as a Candu reactor would.” Indeed, as Westinghouse has geared up to fight for Canadian business, it has announced agreements with potential Canadian suppliers, such as Seaspan.

“The Canadian supply chain could see opportunities in the United States if Canada gets out in front of new builds of the AP1000,” Isaac argued. “It could also position Canada very well for supply-chain opportunities in countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia—the other countries that are considering the AP1000 technology.”