Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Seoul, South Korea for talks on nuclear safety, but Canada wasn't at the table Monday when several world leaders announced a game plan to change the way medical isotopes are made.
U.S. President Barack Obama and several European countries announced the agreement to a process that uses low enriched uranium to make the isotopes, rather than highly enriched uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
"We are reducing the availability of highly enriched uranium, weapons-grade useable material, and it reduces the chance of the material falling into the wrong hands," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the meeting of 60 world leaders in Seoul.
The U.S., Belgium, France and the Netherlands committed Monday to convert their isotope-producing nuclear reactors to the new process by 2015, saying doing so would also improve the reliability of the isotope supply.
Canada is a leader in the field, and supplies more isotopes to the world's cancer clinics than any other country through production at its Chalk River reactor.
But it doesn't appear Canada will be committing to the change over to the new process any time soon.
In fact, Ottawa-based Nordion Inc., the world's largest supplier of the isotopes, recently signed a 10-year agreement with Russia to supply the highly enriched uranium needed to make the isotopes.
Arms control advocates have complained that the deal has slowed efforts to get bomb-grade material out of circulation.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, travelling with the prime minister, defended the fact that Nordion has not switched its reactors over, saying the government was willing to take the step, but "in a calm, orderly fashion."
But a Canadian nuclear expert said Canada is setting a dangerous precedent by refusing to switch to the safer material.
"It is really upsetting the apple cart. It is undermining international efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons," Gordon Edwards, president of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel.
"If this material is going to be used for civilian purposes and trafficked around the world it's going to fall into the hands of criminals and that's really the concern."
Edwards said Canada backed down from a commitment it made two years ago when it promised to switch to low enriched uranium.
"Canada has really been a spoiler here and despite the fact that they made a formal commitment in April 2010 in Washington D.C. to phase out this material they have turned around one year later and allowed a private company to make a 10-year contract to extend supplies from Russia of this very dangerous material," he said.
However, John Park, project director at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International affairs, said there is no way to force countries to honour the commitment.
"There is no obligation. There is no enforcement for countries to secure this material," Park told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel on Monday. "The idea is that through international co-operation. Through this summit mechanism the various countries will work out best practices and other measures to ensure the security of this material."
The Prime Minister's Office also defended its actions Monday by issuing a statement announcing that Canada, the U.S. and Mexico had completed a "joint nuclear security project" to convert Mexico's research reactor to low enriched uranium.
With files from The Associated Press
