Natural Resources committee  Dave, could you take this question?

Natural Resources committee  Certainly. The limitation period in the current act is 10 years. The proposed act before us would increase the limitation period for making claims for bodily injury and death to 30 years from the current 10 years. In the event of an incident, a person could make a claim for damages related to bodily injury or death up to 30 years after the incident, which is what is seen to be the period of time, in the event of exposure, of a rare instance, during which some illnesses may take form and be resident and be able to be detected.

Natural Resources committee  —access, as well as whether you wanted multiple iterations of the same action being brought forward and having challenges of traffic management, if you will, in courts.

Natural Resources committee  I'll address this broadly, and then turn to my colleagues. Broadly, joining the international convention provides us more protection in the sense that there's a community of countries that have similar circumstances and basically have the same frameworks. So it provides legal certainty.

Natural Resources committee  It doesn't, so it would provide that the U.S. had jurisdiction and it would provide, under the terms of the convention, that compensation would be non-discriminatory so that Canadians would have a right to compensation equal to that which Americans have based on the damages that may have been occurred and they might have been subject to.

Natural Resources committee  The reverse is true. So Canada would have jurisdiction. Americans would have to seek compensation through Canadian systems and we'd be limited to Canadian systems and limited within the damage liability framework—

Natural Resources committee  Indeed.

Natural Resources committee  Correct.

Natural Resources committee  I'll have to defer to my legal expert, who might be able to provide that to you. Generally, I think, his proposal was that there be a regulation-making authority that would follow passage of the bill, that would enunciate the value of a coastline, the value of a species, the value of a habitat, and enunciate how one would calculate a cost to return, or the impact to society.

Natural Resources committee  I appreciate that point. The bill actually provides for only an attorney general from a provincial government or an attorney general with the federal government to bring forward the case to court. Individual Canadians would not be expected to, nor would they be able to bring forward said case to court.

Natural Resources committee  I think that's an important question, in the sense that the majority of the system begins with the design, implementation, build, and operation of the system, and the regulatory approach to ensuring the system is regularly developed, tested, and mitigated. On the work that goes in, there's a fairly substantial amount of work that goes in to protect taxpayers, to ensure that the system is designed well.

Natural Resources committee  Time: I think the bill was here before committee four years ago, it might have been.

Natural Resources committee  I wasn't the official, but I do believe it was four years ago. In that time, we have had the chance to conduct further consultations and discussions with the insurance community, the operator community, and the global community. The movement has emerged globally, I think, in the insurance markets.

Natural Resources committee  Actually, I don't want to mislead the committee. It's probably worth pointing out that there are only three or four countries that have over $1 billion. In fact, the European Union is in the process of moving to $1 billion overall; so it's a staged period of time. The trend is that all of the global community is moving.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for your question. I think your comment contains a few sub-questions. I would like to answer by making several points. There certainly is a risk of accidents happening in the nuclear sector. The risks are there and it's always a possibility. However, we think the probability is very low.