Back to the Inaugural Ceremony of the World Nuclear University Part Two 

REMARKS BY GERALD GRANDEY
Inaugural Ceremony of the World Nuclear University
4 September 2003

Let me offer you a simple, concrete example of why the World Nuclear University is so important.

In Canada, as in some other of the countries represented here, we are facing a shortage of nuclear professionals. As time goes on over the next five or ten years, this shortage - already a critical shortage - is only going to get worse. So, like many companies and like many countries, we have started to work with our Canadian universities to reinvigorate their nuclear programs. In this, we have significant government involvement.

But even with that program, now several years old, we find that there is a shortage of young people coming into the industry. Part of the problem is the legacy of the past - the stigma attached to this industry, which relates directly to a lack of informed awareness of what we do. For all these reasons, we are just not attracting the number of candidates we need.

What we do in Canada - for our nuclear power plants, our contractors, our regulatory agencies, all of which need skilled professionals - is look abroad for qualified people to help fill our needs.

This is where the World Nuclear University will play an absolutely crucial role - by ensuring that education levels and curricula are sufficiently standardized throughout the world so there is real mobility, interchange and cooperation. It will help our nuclear facilities in Canada, and our regulatory bodies, draw on a professionally educated human resource pool around the world.

This Canadian example offers, I believe, offers an illustrative, pragmatic example of why we all need the WNU.

We have brought this new institution now to the point where I would say that the egg has been delivered and the fledgling has been hatched. It's not unlike the eagles we see hatching every year in their great natural habitats around our uranium mines. They spend all summer growing big and getting onto the edge of the nest, hopping up and down, waiting to see if their wings are actually going to work.

That's where the WNU is now. It will be up to the industry, to governments, to regulators - to all of us in this room - to see that this fledgling will now take wing and fly.

The challenge to us now - all of us, Cameco included - is to get behind the WNU and support it with our efforts, our people, and our money.