FRED CHARTRAND
The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System is looking at partnering with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. in a bid for part of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the pension fund's chief executive confirmed Monday.
"We are working with SNC right now," Michael Nobrega said.
The pension fund is looking at a narrow portion of the operations, he added.
"The federal government will keep things like Chalk River and isotopes if it wants to do that, the federal government will keep waste, the federal government will keep major research," he said. "We're looking at a very narrow portion of AECL, which is commercial services, which provides knowledge-based services to the industry."
OMERS is weighing a number of considerations as it sizes up the opportunity.
"Number one is that the nuclear industry in Ontario represents about 30,000 jobs, it's a $6-billion industry, and indirectly or directly we have investments in some of these companies that support the industry," he said.
"Secondly, we are a very large customer of AECL, we rely on them for a lot of commercial services," he added.
OMERS wants to ensure that the organization has the strength and ability to carry on, he said. If direction isn't given then key people will begin to drift off to other countries. But those people are important to Ontario's nuclear future, he suggested.