'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
After a tiny radioactive capsule went missing in the Australian outback, an expert in Canada says the likelihood of the same happening in this country is unlikely, given our strong regulations governing the handling of radioactive materials.
The capsule was reported missing on Jan. 25 after it fell off a truck while being transported along a 1,400-kilometre stretch of highway in Western Australia. Authorities in the region announced on Wednesday the capsule had been retrieved after days of searching
Here's what you need to know about the handling of radioactive devices in Canada and whether the same could happen here.
The capsule that went missing in Australia was just six millimetres in diameter and eight millimetres long. It was part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore feed at Rio Tinto's Gudai-Darri mine in Western Australia. It contains the caesium 137 ceramic source, which emits dangerous amounts of radiation, the equivalent of receiving 10 X-rays in an hour.
Laura Boksman, senior consulting scientist at the Radiation Safety Institute of Canada, says such devices containing similarly radioactive material are common in Canada.
"We would have that sort of type of radioactive material device in all sorts of industries in Canada—in mining, in processing. You could have it in pulp and paper, you could have it in the steel industry, you can have them in bottling plants," she told CTVNews.ca on Wednesday in a phone interview. "They're very common, actually."
In order to posess or use radioactive material, individuals have to apply for a licence from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), the federal regulator in charge of nuclear power and radioactive materials.
Applications must include a rundown of all the safety protocols that are planned, such as the training of the people transporting it, how the material is being packaged, what safety audits are being done on a regular basis, and what emergency plans are in place if the material gets lost or stolen.
"You have to submit a lot of information to the regulator to show that you're a committed to working safely and that your plans are adequate for what you want and plan to do with the type of radioactive material that you have," Boksman said
Licences to transport are typically granted for a period of five or 10 years, and they come with additional reporting requirements. On top of that, the CNSC also performs routine inspections.
"There are annual reports that have to be submitted. There are financial guarantees that have to be provided … so that if you go belly up and you just leave, the government has some financial compensation in order to deal with the problems of what you left behind," Boksman added. "To use radioactive material, it's very highly regulated with the CNSC."
Failure to properly handle radioactive material can result in thousands of dollars in fines, even jail time in Canada. But in Australia, the penalties are capped at A$1,000 (C$949), something that the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called "ridiculously low."
Given Canada's regulations, Boksman says it's "extremely unusual" for a radioactive source to go missing without being housed in a device or packaging.
"This sort of type of source would have been in in a gauge of some type, and they definitely don't come apart. And then when you look at the way they're transported, they have to be transported in specific packaging," Boksman said.
In 2022, there were five instances of lost or stolen sources or radiation devices, according the CNSC. Three of these cases involved the theft of portable gauge devices, two of which were recovered. In the other two cases, capsules of iodine-125 were lost in Montreal, but the CNSC classified these as Category 5 sources, or "very low risk."
Boksman says five instances of lost or stolen sources per year is "really, really quite small."
"There are thousands and thousands of shipments of radioactive material every year. We've got such a small number in proportion to the number of shipments that are out there," she said.
With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Canucks as Vancouver kicks off a second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.