Premier Doug Ford participates in a groundbreaking ceremony for Peel Memorial Hospital in Brampton, Ont., on March 28.Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
Although Ontario Premier Doug Ford vowed that his government would “not back down,” “apply maximum pressure” and “keep up the fight” in the Canada-U.S. trade war, one nuclear option is off the table: cancelling contracts to build American power reactors.
The province’s utility, Ontario Power Generation, is on the cusp of starting construction of the first of four BWRX-300 small modular reactors, or SMRs, at Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington. They’re designed by Wilmington, N.C.-based GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a stalwart of the U.S.‘s nuclear industry. While the cost hasn’t been disclosed yet, the first reactor is likely to cost several billion dollars.
But while Mr. Ford has already cancelled a much smaller $100-million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink that would have provided satellite internet service to remote communities, and ordered the Ontario Public Service to review other contracts “with a fine tooth comb,” this one is safe for now.
“We’re leading the G7 on the small modular reactors anywhere in the entire world, and that’s just going to benefit us,” Mr. Ford said during a press conference earlier this month, vowing to “continue moving forward” with all four reactors. Though Energy Minister Stephen Lecce did not provide an interview, a statement sent by his office confirmed the government continues to support the project.
The federal government has also invested considerable political and financial capital in the project, most notably a $970-million loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank in 2022. It provided another $55-million in March toward the next three reactors, even as U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to absorb Canada as the 51st U.S. state.
“We’re early in this conversation with the Americans,” Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal Energy Minister, told The Globe and Mail earlier this month.
“It would behoove us not to make any rash moves while we are still working to get the tariffs taken off.”
Both within and outside the nuclear industry, though, concerns about dependence on American nuclear technology are rising. Chris Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, an advocacy group, said the Darlington SMR should be cancelled, or at least paused while the trade war plays out.
“There’s room to pause and re-evaluate,” he said.
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance, an advocacy group that has long opposed nuclear power, added Mr. Trump’s hostility to its already lengthy list of objections to the project.
“They still haven’t got a construction license, so it’s still relatively early days,” said Jack Gibbons, the group’s chair. “We should cancel the contract to protect our energy security and our sovereignty.”
He added that “we would be wholly reliant on the United States for the enriched uranium to fuel the GE-Hitachi reactors. Those uranium imports could be cut off by a stroke of the pen from President Trump.”
Moreover, Ontario nuclear sector’s ability to participate in future international constructions of BWRX-300s – a prevalent justification for the Darlington project – is increasingly unclear. Senior Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have spoken of the need “to restore American energy dominance” while promoting energy independence and emphasizing jobs and production on American soil.
Crucial components such as reactor pressure vessels and control systems require export licences from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mr. Keefer said, which could be withheld. He added that the U.S. government could block the transfer of reactor designs or proprietary software to countries such as Poland or Estonia, where Ontario officials have promoted BWRX-300s.
“Trump is talking about how he wants car manufacturing in Oshawa and Oakville to be moved to Detroit,” he said.
“Are we really naïve enough to think that we’d get this big ‘thank you’ for taking on development and construction risk, and that the U.S. is going to give us a huge chunk of the export market?”
That is precisely what the Ontario government expects.
“We will continue to sell and export this clean technology to the world, creating 2,000 good-paying jobs right here in Ontario,” wrote Isha Chaudhuri, a spokesperson for Mr. Lecce, in a statement.
“The Darlington New Nuclear Project could create up to 17,000 jobs during construction, contribute over $15-billion to Canada’s GDP, and drive $500-million annually into our supply chain because our government has insisted and successfully negotiated that local Canadian businesses must be overwhelmingly used to build SMRs for the world.”
For GE-Hitachi, the Darlington project is a rare opportunity to build a first-of-a-kind reactor with an experienced utility and a pro-nuclear government willing to take on substantial financial and technological risks. It has other prospective customers, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, yet there’s widespread reluctance among U.S. utilities to build the first units. (GE-Hitachi declined an interview request for this story.)
NuScale Power Corp. was the first vendor to achieve U.S. regulatory certification of its SMR, known as the NuScale Power Module, and partnered with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (an agency that supplies electricity to utilities in seven U.S. states) on a proposed 720-megawatt plant near Idaho Falls, Idaho. But that project was cancelled in late 2023 as its site-specific cost estimate neared completion. So far, NuScale has been unable to replace that customer.
But if GE-Hitachi and American utilities have a lot riding on the Darlington project, cancelling it would have significant repercussions for Ontario.
More than three years have elapsed since OPG announced it had selected GE-Hitachi to design its SMR. The BWRX-300 has already cleared the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s prelicensing review process and a construction licence for the first Darlington unit could arrive in the coming weeks. OPG helped finance the reactor’s basic design.
The site for the first reactor has already been prepared. Because it is to be built underground, a vertical shaft has already been excavated to 78 metres above sea level – 8 metres below ground. (Once completed, it will be dug to 51 meters above sea level.)
Levelling of the land for the other three is more than half complete. Shared water lines, sewers and fibre-optic cabling are being installed. A tunnel boring machine, for digging a water intake channel, is expected to arrive this summer.
BWX Technologies is already gearing up to build the reactor’s pressure vessel – a crucial component – at its plant in Cambridge, Ont., and parts for it are already arriving.
Expected to be completed by 2028, the Darlington project became the centerpiece in a government-driven effort to promote SMRs as a promising source of carbon-free electricity that could replace coal-fired plants. As long ago as 2018, the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau prepared a “SMR roadmap” that envisioned multiple reactor technologies built coast-to-coast. Ontario and New Brunswick, which already had nuclear power plants, signed on enthusiastically along with Alberta and Saskatchewan, which currently have none.
The Darlington SMR is among the few elements of the roadmap that have moved forward. Following what it described as a “pan-Canadian, fleet-based approach,” SaskPower selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s. If halted, those provinces might build more natural gas-fired plants instead, adding to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“Pausing or canceling the project would risk delaying the clean energy transition, weaken Canada’s standing in the global SMR market, and potentially undermine public confidence in the country’s ability to deliver on long-term infrastructure projects,” Erveina Gosalci, founder of the Canadian Association of Small Modular Reactors, wrote in a statement.
Chris Gadomski, head of nuclear research for BloombergNEF, said about two-thirds of new nuclear reactors under construction worldwide are in Asia; another one-third are in Europe. The Americas, meanwhile, have seen virtually no recent activity except for the failed NuScale-UAMPS partnership and the Darlington SMR.
“For them to put the kibosh on this would have very serious ramifications for the nuclear industry in North and South America,” Mr. Gadomski said.
“To me, it seems like it would be very, very counterproductive … the Canadians have a lot to gain by building the first North American SMR that would be largely manufactured in Canada, and to set up a supply chain.”
He added that, “speaking as a North American citizen, we have such co-operation between Canada and the U.S., and the people who I talk to think antagonizing our northern neighbour is one of the most stupid things that Trump has done.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that the site for the first reactor has already been excavated to 78 metres above sea level. (Once completed, it will be dug to 51 meters above sea level.) (April 2, 2025) This article was further updated to add that the site is currently excavated to 8 metres below ground.