Canada's secretive tax-dollar sucking nuclear industry is basking in the glow of completing one of its rare projects.

The project in Qinshan, China over the next few weeks will start illuminating homes and businesses near the power hungry metropolis of Shanghai.

For the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL), a crown corporation which hoovers up some $100-million in tax dollars a year, the Qinshan project is a huge technical and business success.

After all the complex assembly of tubing, concrete, uranium rods and steam turbines designed by Canadian engineers will be the second Candu reactor in the area.

The Qinshan project involved building two nuclear generators 125 kilometres southeast of Shanghai, each capable of churning out 728 megawatts of power.

AECL believes that Qinshan which came in four months early and under budget should be enough to zip up the naysayers, a right to your tax dollars and pave the way for future sales.

We don't think so.

First of all, other than one project underway in Romania, AECL has little to show for its 1995 commitment to sell 10 reactors in 10 years.

Since then, despite billions of dollars in bait that AECL has dangled before potential purchasers, only two reactors were sold - both to China.

More importantly the China deal would not have happened without some questionable manoeuvres by Ottawa to lure the Chinese and keep the taxpayer in the dark.

Desperate for a deal to keep the nuclear watchdogs at bay, AECL inked the Qinshan contract with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) on November 26, 1996.

As part of the deal, your Canadian government gave a loan to the Chinese to the tune of $1.94 billion dollars under a secret arrangement, which it is refusing to make public.

The money came from the Canada Account of the Export Development Corporation (EDC), which means that the funds would come directly out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, the main operating monies of the federal government.

The government guarantee and loan for the Qinshan reactors was the largest loan in Canadian history. It will remain a liability on the federal government's accounts until paid back.

If China defaults, then Canadian taxpayers are on the hook.

If that puts a crimp in your plans to raise a toast to Canada's nuclear industry, wait, there is more.

Several weeks before the deal was signed, Jean Chretien's China-friendly cabinet met on November 6, 1996 in a hastily arranged night-time session to make changes to regulations under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

The regulations as they were that night under the Projects Outside Canada Environmental Assessment Regulations required a preliminary screening and a comprehensive environmental assessment before the Candu reactors could be built in Qinshan.

China would have none of this foreign meddling in its environment. Ottawa relented.

On Nov 27, 1996, one day after the Qinshan deal was signed, the revised regulations formulated at the late night cabinet meeting was made public.

It was bureaucratic gobbledygook that said the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and its Projects Outside Canada Environmental Assessment Regulations do not apply to projects which receive financial assistance from Crown corporations through the Canada Account.

Basically the revisions were structured to facilitate the loan and avoid public scrutiny. Even the legal eagles at the Justice Department warned Ottawa that the tampering of the regulations may not withstand a court challenge.

The Sierra Club of Canada, determined to shed light on the nuclear deal with China, launched several court challenges but the government was determined to keep the contract out of the public eye.

Ottawa and AECL subsequently engaged in a lengthy series of delaying tactics in the courts, while work continued on the reactors in China.

The legal challenges, some of which remain unresolved have become moot, as the second Candu reactor powers up.

Ottawa and AECL say the Qinshan project is a testament to the determination of Canada's nuclear industry.

We agree.

It was the determination to keep the Canadian public in the dark that has given Shanghai lights.