Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Central to the motion was whether Rule 317 of the Federal Courts Rules required the CNSC to supplement its Certified Tribunal Record with 20 items said to have been improperly withheld.
• The general rule confines disclosure to material actually before the decision maker when the decision was made and not already in the applicant's possession.
• NexGen invoked procedural fairness exceptions — the Commission's alleged lack of independence from its staff and the denial of cross-examination — as grounds to broaden disclosure.
• Whether an "ongoing regulatory relationship" between NexGen and the CNSC expanded the disclosable record was a key point of contention.
• Paragraphs 12 and 99 of the Record of Determination, which NexGen characterized as jurisdiction-exceeding "admonishments," were disputed as a basis for further production.
• Establishing a factual basis and a concrete connection between each pleaded ground and the specific documents sought fell to the applicant, who bore the burden of displacing the general rule.

Facts of the case
NexGen Energy Ltd. is pursuing the Rook I Project, a proposed uranium mine and mill on Patterson Lake in northern Saskatchewan. On February 14, 2019, it applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for a licence to prepare the site and construct the facility, but no licence had been issued when the dispute arose. In November 2023, Saskatchewan officials advised CNSC staff that NexGen had built two large pads, each 100 metres by 100 metres, at locations matching two mineshafts described in NexGen's application. Following requests for information, site visits, and a publicly streamed October 8, 2024 investor interview involving TD Securities — during which two shaft pads and freeze-rings were described as being in place — CNSC staff came to view the work as more than exploration. A November 19, 2024 inspection confirmed rings of cased and capped drill holes filled with brine solution on each pad, alongside signage identifying the future production and exhaust shaft sites. The designated officer concluded that the ring-shaped arrays were freeze-rings necessary to construct the nuclear facility, and therefore constituted site preparation carried out without the licence required by section 26(e) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. A Notice of Violation dated December 12, 2024 imposed an administrative monetary penalty of $29,080. NexGen requested a review on January 9, 2025; after a hearing on April 8, 2025, the CNSC confirmed the violation but reduced the penalty to $11,920 in its Record of Determination of May 16, 2025. NexGen then applied for judicial review, and this decision resolves its motion, brought in writing, for an order compelling the CNSC to produce a supplementary Certified Tribunal Record (CTR) containing 20 items said to have been improperly withheld.

Statutory and procedural provisions at issue
The core prohibition is section 26(e) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which bars preparing a site for or constructing a nuclear facility except under a licence; there was no dispute that a uranium mine and mill is a nuclear facility. NexGen relied on subsection 2(2) of the Uranium Mines and Mills Regulations, which exempts prospecting and surface exploration activities, arguing that its design confirmation drilling was exploratory and so needed no CNSC licence. The motion itself turned on Rules 317 and 318 of the Federal Courts Rules, which let a party obtain material relevant to a judicial review that is in the tribunal's possession, and provide the mechanism for resolving a tribunal's objection. Provisions framing the background included section 65.1 of the Act (the right to request a review of an administrative monetary penalty) and section 20 (the CNSC's status as a court of record that proceeds informally and is not bound by the strict rules of evidence).

The court's reasoning and analysis
Justice Roy grounded the analysis in the settled purpose of Rule 317: to place before the reviewing court the record that was before the administrative decision maker, not to serve as a discovery tool or license a fishing expedition. Drawing on authorities such as Access Information Agency, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (Access Copyright), and Tsleil-Waututh Nation, he stressed that a reviewing court assesses the legality of a decision rather than re-deciding its merits, so the evidentiary record is generally confined to what was actually before the decision maker and not already in the applicant's possession. The uncontradicted affidavit of CNSC Registrar Candace Salmon established that the CTR already contained everything before the Commission. Because NexGen sought to go beyond that record, it bore the burden of bringing itself within a recognized exception, supported by a factual basis and appropriate evidence. On procedural fairness, the court found NexGen's allegations of institutional bias, lack of independence from staff, and denial of cross-examination to be bald assertions unconnected to any specific document, noting that concerns capable of being raised at the April 2025 hearing were not raised there. On the ongoing-regulatory-relationship argument, the court held that broader disclosure is available only where the decision maker actually drew on prior decisions or data (as in Gusto TV and Canadian National), which was not shown here; this was a discrete, one-off dispute over whether NexGen's work crossed from exploration into site preparation. The court also treated paragraphs 12 and 99 of the Record of Determination — which NexGen labelled jurisdiction-exceeding admonishments — as non-binding encouragement toward better communication, finding no link between that complaint and the documents requested. Throughout, NexGen failed to connect any pleaded ground to the particular items sought, many of which it had authored or received and could itself have filed.

Ruling and outcome
The court dismissed the motion in its entirety, refusing both the request for a supplementary CTR and the alternative request that the CNSC file an affidavit explaining its search, since NexGen had not established even an arguable case that the documents were relevant or accessible. As the successful party, the Attorney General of Canada — acting on behalf of the CNSC — was awarded its costs, fixed at $720 inclusive of disbursements and taxes.