An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, what I said is that the best case scenario, based on what we understand of staff concerns to this point, is that we would have the case by end of day Thursday. I think it is important to go back though. We believe we have submitted an adequate safety case. We believe that we have the right to go before the commission at that time.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, based on what we know and CNSC staff concerns about the safety case that we have already submitted, which we believe is adequate, we believe that it will take us, best case, end of day Thursday, but safety analysis is not an exact science. To answer the questions we need to determine exactly what is required.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, our opinion is that we will not be operating outside the regulatory framework. I do not want to put words in the minister's mouth, but our understanding is that it only applies to the situation and there will be no impact on any insurance. We would still be accountable to the regulator, we believe.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Yes, I absolutely do. I would also like to say, though, and I believe it is something that has been said earlier this evening, the operator, me, my staff and my team are ultimately responsible for the safe operation. Our goal is not compliance. Our goal is safety well beyond compliance.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  I want to be more specific than that. The seven upgrades, the situation we are in now goes right back to 1993, so that is the reason the commissioner mentioned that there would be root cause investigation, and that is part of what we need to understand. It is part of that root cause investigation.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  One of the things about safety analysis is, and I do not want to get into a lot of technical detail about it either, but safety analysis is built around calculations, assumptions, uncertainty allowances and a number of different things. We believe that to respond to the concerns that CNSC staff have about the safety case that we presented, our best case scenario would be at the end of the day Thursday, but we would expect out of that, based on experience, there would be discussions and further discussions about what that analysis meant.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, you have my absolute assurance that this reactor will be operated safely. My commitment to safety is unwavering and nothing that transpires in that period of time would change that.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the primary responsibility I have as a site licence holder is to ensure the safety of the facility. That is an ongoing day to day challenge. When I say challenge, I mean from the point of view of my responsibilities. My job is to ensure that safety, working with staff, working with my management team in total to ensure the ongoing safety.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, there is no safety-related issue with the start-up of this reactor. This reactor shuts down once a month for typically about four days. Start-up and shutdown evolutions are more common for this reactor than they are in the power reactor sector, where the shutdowns are typically for maintenance between a year and three years.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, going back to AECL's involvement in this, I immensely dissatisfied with the performance of our organization. I have just spent time talking about the physical plant, the design basis and the licensing basis and, while now we are confident that we are within the licensing basis for the facility, I am immensely dissatisfied with our performance personally in terms of the time that it has taken for us to do the upgrades.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Good evening, Mr. Chair. My name is Brian McGee and I am the chief nuclear officer for AECL. The reactor operated safely up to and including the time of the reactor shutdown. We are completely confident of that and I believe that it is a matter of record that CNSC staff have agreed with that as well.