I understand completely. Thank you very much.
This reactor supplies more than 50 percent of the world's medical isotopes, used in 25,000 medical procedures every day, and crucial in the diagnosis and treatment of serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. Without these isotopes, many patients faced delays in essential treatment. Experts we consulted confirmed that a continued shortage of these substances would have meant life or death for some patients.
The growing health crisis and the impasse between AECL and the nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, required that the government take all reasonable steps to find a resolution to this matter.
The president of the CNSC is the chief executive officer and is responsible for the supervision and the direction of the work of the members, officers, and employees of the commission. At issue was the president's failure to manage the work in order to bring the matter for hearing before the commission in an appropriately urgent fashion. The failure to consider fully, in a timely fashion, the serious consequences of the growing shortage of medical isotopes was of greatest concern to the government.
Our review of her submission, in response to my letter dated December 27, concludes that the manner in which the president exercised her executive role, in particular her lack of leadership during the extended shutdown of the NRU reactor at Chalk River, does not meet the very high standard of conduct the government and Canadians expect from public office holders who are responsible for the executive management of institutions charged with safeguarding the health and safety of all Canadians.
The Governor in Council has therefore reached the conclusion that the president no longer enjoys the confidence required of the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. However, she remains a full-time member of the commission.
I intend today to outline in detail the steps I and my colleagues took to deal with this matter, culminating in the decision to introduce emergency legislation. Let me begin by providing you with a chronology of key events.
On Sunday, November 18, the NRU reactor at Chalk River was shut down as part of routine maintenance.
On Thursday, November 22, AECL sent a brief e-mail to my department and an official in my office noting the shutdown was being extended. Also on that day, during a regular working-level meeting between AECL, MDS Nordion, and an official from Natural Resources Canada, it was noted that the scheduled outage could possibly extend into December.
On Thursday, November 29, an official from the CNSC sent an e-mail to my department and to my office calling attention to a December 6 meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and attaching a report on the extended shutdown.
On Friday, November 30, Natural Resources Canada received details from AECL on the implications of what is described as a temporary shutdown of the medical isotope supply. In fact, in that e-mail AECL stated that they intended to restart the NRU by early December. Up until that day, there was no sense of urgency coming from either AECL or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
On the following Monday, December 3, my office was briefed on the licensing and its potential implications for the health and safety of Canadians. It was at this point I was informed. Over the balance of the week, NRCan officials and I were fully engaged in a profound effort to resolve the problem.
On Tuesday, December 4, my deputy minister and officials had a conference call with AECL to obtain more information and understand more fully the magnitude of the problem. We were informed that the shutdown could extend into January 2008.
My colleague, the Minister of Health, was also acting. On Wednesday, December 5, his department contacted nuclear medicine specialists across Canada to assess how best to manage the growing shortage of isotopes. He was in contact with close to 800 health care facilities across Canada, including nearly 250 nuclear medicine facilities, in order to determine the extent and the impact of the shortage. He wrote to his provincial and territorial counterparts to engage them in managing the available supplies as effectively as possible to identify areas of special need.
International contacts were made to assess the impact of the shutdown of production for other countries, and also to determine the availability of additional supplies of isotopes for Canada.
From the government's discussion with medical experts, it was obvious that the isotope shortage was potentially very serious. Dr. Chris O'Brien, president of the Ontario Association of Nuclear Medicine, said the situation reminded him of his time in Uganda, when he had to decide who would receive medical care and who would not, based on that day's shortages.
On Wednesday, December 5, given the growing seriousness of the issue, I called the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to urge the commission to explore all possible options and to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. In my call with her, she offered no encouragement with regard to opportunities for addressing the growing crisis in a timely fashion. The president did indicate that if AECL submitted a proper safety case, the CNSC would review the case and render a decision.
On Friday, December 7, AECL sent a letter to the president of the CNSC stating that it was in the public interest to re-establish urgently the supply of medical radioisotopes and seeking CNSC approval for the corporation's proposed one-pump solution based on its prepared safety case.
This letter stated, and I quote, “The safety analyses conducted by AECL indicate that it is both possible and prudent to return the NRU to service safely and expeditiously.” At this point, I asked my department to engage independent experts to provide an assessment on this safety analysis.
On Saturday, December 8, in light of the increasing crisis in the health community, a reality that was captured on some front pages and at the top of newscasts across the country, I again contacted the president of the CNSC. At this time, I asked the president whether the commission could convene an expeditious hearing or panel to consider the merits of AECL's safety case, which AECL advised me was strong. The president responded that AECL's safety case was deficient and that considerably more information would need to be provided before a commission hearing could be convened.
During the same call, I also posed the question of whether the reactor would be safer, with one pump operating, than it had been before the outage. In response, the CNSC director general of nuclear cycle and facilities regulation, who was also on the call, indicated that the reactor would be no less safe than it had been before. The same official would later testify before Parliament that in fact the one-pump scenario would be safer than before.
On Monday, December 10, the Minister of Health and I sent letters to the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the executive vice-president of AECL expressing our deep concerns regarding the impacts on the health of Canadians. That night I was briefed by two nuclear experts who had been asked by NRCan to provide an independent assessment of the merits of AECL's safety case. I was advised that operating the reactor with one of the new seismically qualified pumps would make the NRU safer than it ever had been before.
On Tuesday, December 11, the government conveyed a directive to the CNSC. It directed the commission, in taking decisions on nuclear energy, to take into account the health of Canadians dependent on nuclear substances for medical purposes. As you know, later that day we introduced the emergency legislation. Immediately after Bill C-38 received royal assent, the NRU was put into start-up mode.
Let's summarize the facts that emerge from this chronology.
First, Canadians and indeed citizens of other countries faced a growing health crisis due to a shortage of isotopes. Independent medical experts were calling for urgent steps.
Second, operators of the reactor confirmed that they could restart isotope production with no loss of safety compared to the NRU's previous 50-year history. In fact, AECL said they could operate the reactor even more safely than before, with the one backup pump installed.
Third, independent nuclear experts engaged by my department agreed with the safety assessment. But that's not all. The CNSC's own staff, in their discussion with me and in testimony before Parliament, agreed the reactor could be operated just as safely as before it was shut down.
Fourth, the CNSC made plain in its communications with the government that it was not willing to address the crisis in a timely fashion, despite the fact that the statutory mandate of the CNSC is broad enough to take into account, in the regulation of the production, possession, or use of nuclear substances, the health of Canadians who for medical reasons depend on nuclear substances. The decision of the CNSC to extend the shutdown of the NRU reactor was made by AECL alone and was entirely voluntary on their part. As the record shows, however, this is at odds with the statement she made at the CNSC public hearings on December 6. At that time, the president indicated that if AECL had not made the decision it did, the commission would have ordered the NRU reactor to be shut down.
Finally, the president of the CNSC has said that AECL never submitted a complete safety case to support a licence amendment, and that this information was required before the CNSC could schedule a hearing on the matter.
The CNSC need not be a passive regulator. Its chief executive officer could mobilize the powers within its legislation to put the CNSC in a position to act proactively and expeditiously. When a crisis looms, a CEO has to put their organization in a position to respond.
Given the serious consequences to the health of Canadians, I would have been remiss in fulfilling my role as a minister of the crown had I not raised with the CNSC the growing health crisis. The numerous communications between me and the president were all made in an effort to urge the commission to consider all available evidence before it when balancing the array of risks, and to ask the commission to use its power to convene a meeting without delay.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer to another matter, the special examination report on AECL by the Auditor General, which is done every five years. I want to be very clear that there is nothing in this report to suggest that anyone would have had advance notice or would have anticipated that the NRU would be shut down and that we would have a shortage of medical isotopes. It is a good report. The information contained in it reflected the long-standing problems facing the corporation, the long-term neglect of the funding to meet those challenges going back over 15 years, and the need to take a strong and determined approach in tackling them.
Mr. Chairman, this is a situation that we inherited, but it is also a situation on which, I am proud to say, we have taken decisive action as a government dating back to June 2006. At that time, we announced more than a half a billion dollars over five years to begin the cleanup of the nuclear legacy liabilities at Chalk River. This past June, we announced that we would proceed with the long-term strategy to deal with nuclear waste in Canada as recommended by Canada's nuclear waste management organization.
Over $45 million was provided in the last supplementary estimates to address the regulatory and health and safety needs at Chalk River. More recently, we have commenced a comprehensive review of AECL as I announced on November 29, 2007, on which we will report in the coming months. This event has underlined areas for improvement, and our government is acting. The vacancies on the board of directors and in the position of CEO of AECL have allowed the government to appoint a new chair and a new CEO and fill several other vacancies to ensure strong leadership.
I have written to both AECL and the CNSC to develop a new protocol to ensure that the Minister of Natural Resources is advised immediately of any situation that may affect the health and safety of Canadians. A communications protocol between NRCan, Health Canada, and AECL has already been developed. My department has also initiated a dialogue with MDS Nordion to ensure that they too are involved.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the employees of CNSC and AECL get up and go to work every day with professionalism and dedication to their work for the people of Canada. Our government appreciates their efforts and shares the goal of bettering the health and well-being of Canadians. It is the key objective that has motivated the Government of Canada's efforts throughout this unfortunate incident, and it will continue to guide our efforts into the future.
Mr. Chair, I should also note that I made reference to a number of e-mails dated November 22, November 29, and November 30, and to a number of other documents as well. I would be happy to table the documents I can at this time for the information of the committee.
I would be pleased to take your questions now.
Thank you very much.
