Bill C-38 (Historical)

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

This enactment permits Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to resume and continue the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River in Ontario for a period of 120 days despite certain conditions of its licence under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are full of conspiracy theories. Each day they come back with a new theory, when in reality they do not know what they stand for. They criticize the government for not engaging soon enough. Then they say that we should not have been engaged and that we should not have responded.

One day the Liberals say that they support Bill C-38, after they have had ample opportunity to examine all the witnesses. Then they change their minds the next day. Now they are starting to criticize people from various agencies.

The government respects all employees at the CNSC and AECL for their hard work. We will continue to stand behind them for getting the job done.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolute nonsense coming from the other side. When we were faced with a situation in early December, the government took reasonable steps, and ultimately had the support of every political party, to ensure the health and safety of all Canadians by resuming the production of medical isotopes.

The hon. member and the party opposite do not know what they stand for. One day they say that we should not have acted. The next day they say that we did not act soon enough. They say that they support Bill C-38. The following week they change their minds. They say that they are not sure if they should have done so. They do not know where they stand.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee.

I'm here this afternoon with my deputy minister and my assistant deputy minister on this file.

It is my pleasure to address the health impact the Chalk River nuclear shutdown with you.

As members of the Standing Committee on Health, you are keenly aware of the importance of correct diagnosis, especially in cases of critical illnesses such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. Radioisotopes are used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

As members know, the Chalk River reactor is an essential source of medical isotopes in Canada and indeed world-wide. The extended shutdown of the NRU reactor significantly reduced the supply in Canada and throughout the world.

As soon as I became aware of the situation, on December 5, my officials and I started acting immediately to stem what was quickly evolving into an urgent health crisis. We communicated with 773 health care facilities across Canada, including 245 nuclear medicine facilities, to determine initially the severity of the shortage. We found that shortages were felt in smaller rural and remote areas, particularly in Atlantic Canada, and that shortages were imminent elsewhere.

We inquired into gaining supply from the four other medical isotope suppliers in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and South Africa. In doing so, we found that French and South African reactors were going through routine maintenance at exactly the same moment. All in all, we found that overseas suppliers could increase their output by only 10%, or at maximum, 15%. Furthermore, overseas suppliers indicated that the earliest they could provide us with the additional supply would be December 29. Based on the information we were receiving, this would have been too little, too late, as the shortage situation would have, I'm absolutely convinced, escalated to unmanageable levels long before that.

During this time we also established a group of experts from the fields of oncology, cardiology, and nuclear medicine, as well as representatives of the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine. Based on the information from this group, it was clear we were in the midst of a growing health crisis, and one that needed action. One of the members of our expert group, Dr. Karen Gulenchyn, told the natural resources committee of Parliament last week that “...we believe that unmanageable shortages would have occurred within a week”. This group estimated that approximately 10% of affected patients were indeed facing life-and-death decisions.

The group of experts also gave information that another 30% to 40% were facing the risk of under-equipped physicians making inappropriate diagnostic and treatment decisions. This message was reiterated in a letter dated December 10, 2007, to Linda Keen, and copied to me, in which Dr. Brian Day, who of course is president of the Canadian Medical Association, stated that the CMA “...joins the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine....to express our deep concern and profound disappointment with the disruption of supply of medical isotopes due to the extended shutdown of the reactor at Chalk River”.

He goes on:

The devastating impact that this has had on patient care across Canada, and indeed around the world, has been compounded by what we perceive as a true lack of understanding of what the extended shutdown means to patients who need access to vital diagnostic procedures. For physicians it means we are increasingly being forced to make difficult clinical decisions without appropriate critical diagnostic tools.

I'm hoping we can all agree that a faulty diagnostic or treatment decision today is the first step to a more complicated or critical situation tomorrow.

In short, in order to serve the needs of patients in a way Canadians rightfully expect, gaining a minimal supply of medical isotopes from overseas was no substitute for a running reactor at Chalk River, which produces more than half of the world's supply. As a result, we had a responsibility to seek information from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission about ways to resolve the growing health crisis.

First we wanted to see if there could be an expeditious hearing to consider the merits of AECL's safety case, without in any way directing the commission to reach a particular conclusion. Alas, such a decision was not reached.

Second, our government issued a policy directive stipulating that the commission's decisions take into account the health of Canadians who depend on nuclear substances to meet medical needs, but that had no effect.

So our government had to take decisive action on December 11 by proposing to Parliament Bill C-38. Of course this bill passed with all-party support, and by December 19 isotope production was returned to pre-shutdown levels, and deliveries resumed over the holidays.

Dr. Andrew Ross, a nuclear medicine specialist at Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, called our action “a great Christmas present”. Indeed, he was not alone. The Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine thanked all parliamentarians of “all political stripes” for the fast legislative action.

Now that the situation has passed, my officials are continuing to work with the expert advisory group to establish contingency plans in the event of any future supply disruption.

This includes assessing the possibility for alternative sources, along with substitute diagnostic techniques that could be used if needed, and examining opportunities for enhancing international collaboration to coordinate supply.

This work is also aiming to ensure timely notification of issues that may affect supply.

As a result, we have developed a notification protocol between AECL, Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada. It provides clarity about who needs to be contacted and when. As well, it states that information will be shared immediately when it concerns Chalk River's operations and therefore the supply of medical isotopes.

In the future, if my department receives information about a potential shortage, we will be able to draw on the best practices employed in December and the lessons learned from that experience to immediately establish contact with provinces, territories, the health care communities, and relevant experts to assess the potential impact and launch strategies to respond.

In closing, Madam Chair, I want to underline the fact that our government acted out of necessity for the health of Canadians. Going without isotopes provided by Chalk River meant health care providers were under-equipped to meet the urgent needs of patients. As the shutdown went on longer, the potential for a health crisis grew stronger. Accordingly, our government acted decisively to stop it before it was too late. We did so with all-party support in Parliament.

Together, all parliamentarians put aside partisanship to act as needed when lives were threatened.

Our government did what was needed for the health of Canadians—and I thank everyone here today for your votes in December which helped achieve this result.

[Grant Malkoske]

As I mentioned, we supply to a radiopharmaceutical manufacturer. They are one of the two suppliers who supply back to Canada. Bristol-Myers Squibb and Covidien are the suppliers of radiopharmaceutical products to Canada. We supply Bristol-Myers Squibb with the medical isotopes that go into their finished products. Covidien obtains their material from the Netherlands. So there is a dual supply stream.

On the first part, about a plan B, I agree with you that this is a tenuous situation. I think what we need is a national isotope supply strategy for Canada. At 50 years old, the NRU reactor is the most reliable reactor in the world. It has a 97% supply reliability. It stands as the pre-eminent reactor in all of the world to do that. So an investment into the NRU infrastructure to keep it operating, to keep it licensed beyond 2011, we believe is absolutely essential.

The MAPLE reactors are solely dedicated isotope production reactors. One alone could provide the capacity that we require. The second one is a complete backup system. Bring the MAPLE reactors on line as quickly as possible.

So we think there is a plan B. But the difficulty we all face today in the world is the eventuality of a precipitous event like NRU. It would be something like if Saudi Arabia were shut down from supplying gas or oil to the world, what would you do immediately? There would be a shortage. That's the kind of situation we were facing with NRU.

So it's not a matter of planning for such a precipitous event. How do you do that? The global capacity was only able to fill 15% of the NRU gap. If NRU had continued on, it would still be a 15% gap. So planning three months or six months in advance would not have alleviated that situation. It is interesting to note that during this period of outage we contacted the Belgians, we contacted the people in the Netherlands, and we contacted the South Africans on November 23 to try to get any incremental amount of backup supply that we possibly could. We were very diligent; we consistently went through that.

Interestingly, during this outage there was one European reactor that was down completely during that outage period because of a pre-planned maintenance cycle. It did not come on line until somewhere around December 18. Interestingly enough, a reactor in France shut down during that period, before Bill C-38 was passed. What kind of planning would prevent that from happening?

There is a global capacity issue that needs to be dealt with. That is the fundamental issue in all of this.

[Grant Malkoske, Vice-President, Strategic Technologies, MDS Nordion]

Good morning, Madam Chair and members.

My name is Grant Malkoske. I am vice-president of strategic technologies at MDS Nordion. Accompanying me is David McInnes, vice-president of international relations.

MDS Nordion is an Ottawa-based life sciences company with more than 700 employees at locations in Laval, Vancouver, and Belgium.

We welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to provide our perspective on the 2007 medical isotope supply shortage caused by the NRU reactor shutdown. This event had a significant impact on medical isotope production and our ability to supply medical isotopes to the nuclear medicine community and, in turn, that community’s ability to supply to hospitals, physicians, and patients.

As you may be aware, we appeared before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources last week. As we stated there, there is a sequence of steps in the medical isotope supply chain that ends with hospitals. The steps involve a reactor, a processor, a radiopharmaceutical manufacturer, and a hospital and/or radiopharmacy that administer the product to the patients.

The AECL NRU reactor is our primary source of medical isotopes. MDS Nordion is the processor of these medical isotopes at our facility in Ottawa. It is important to note that MDS Nordion is not the direct supplier of radiopharmaceuticals to hospitals. We distribute medical isotopes, which are active pharmaceutical ingredients, to our customers--radiopharmaceutical companies, all of which are based outside Canada. Our customers, in turn, manufacture radiopharmaceuticals and distribute them to hospitals and radiopharmacies in Canada and worldwide.

Two American companies are our primary customers and supply all of Canada’s radiopharmaceutical products. Canadian-produced medical isotopes are responsible for supplying a total of more than 50% of the world’s medical isotopes, some 60,000 procedures a day, 5,000 in Canada alone.

One important aspect in this supply picture is the global production capacity. The NRU reactor is the most reliable reactor in the world for medical isotope production. Its supply reliability exceeds 97%. There are only three other sources to call upon for backup supply: South Africa, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

If one of these reactors goes off-line, NRU can quickly ramp up to meet 100% of the additional demand. However, the reverse is not true, as we saw last November and December. If NRU is off-line for more than seven days, no other foreign reactor or combination of foreign reactors today can fully fill the supply gap left by NRU. Even with the world’s other reactors ramping up to capacity, there was still approximately a 35% total global shortage in medical isotopes. That gap would have persisted had the NRU reactor remained off-line.

On the evening of November 21 we were informed that NRU would not be restarting after its scheduled shutdown. We immediately initiated our contingency protocol for such emergencies. With only two days of inventory remaining, we began notifying affected customers, radiopharmaceutical manufacturers. We remained in close contact with them over the course of the outage period.

On the morning of November 22, in a meeting with AECL, we were informed of the potential extent of the NRU outage. We advised AECL this outage would cause a shortage of global supply of approximately 30%.

In the afternoon of November 22 we attended a regularly scheduled meeting arranged by AECL with Natural Resources Canada and ourselves. At that meeting we reiterated the estimated impact of this outage on global supply.

On November 23 we contacted our other suppliers in South Africa, Belgium, and the Netherlands in an attempt to source backup supply. Virtually every day we remained in contact with these suppliers.

It is important to note that at this point it was not clear when the NRU reactor would resume isotope production. The information provided by AECL was in constant flux with regard to resolution options and restart schedules. By late November, AECL advised us that it was working toward an early December restart. Based on that information, we then issued a press release.

Starting on December 5, government officials from several departments sought regular briefings from us to update them. That led to later discussions by department officials with Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada to involve us in the development of a communication protocol, should any such supply event occur again.

In addition to repeatedly requesting additional medical isotopes from our backup suppliers, we took a number of steps to facilitate extra supply. We obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to combine any available backup supply in any proportion. We contacted the Belgian nuclear regulator to validate the shortage crisis and enable special dispensation for increasing processing limits at the Belgian processing facility. We shipped licensed containers to all our suppliers to facilitate immediate shipments should any material become available.

In addition to seeking the backup supply I mentioned earlier, on December 3 we also initiated a meeting with all the world's suppliers to make an unprecedented request that they share their regular supplies. They refused.

Despite persistent attempts to source backup supply, we were only able to get a marginal amount of isotopes from abroad, about 20% of what we needed. All backup supply received by MDS Nordion prior to the time Bill C-38 was passed on December 12 came from South Africa. We were not able to get any backup supply from Europe.

Although the medical isotope shortage turned out to be about 35%, the shortage varied from country to country. In Canada's case, it was about 65% because the NRU reactor is a primary source in our supply chain. As we have learned from the nuclear medicine community, the shortage was more acute in certain regions of the country. The reason for the geographic variation depended upon where each hospital obtained its finished radiopharmaceuticals. Our customer, U.S.-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, was and still is the largest supplier of finished radiopharmaceuticals to Canada.

We prevailed upon Bristol-Myers Squibb to ensure that Canada received its fair share of available finished radiopharmaceuticals. They informed us that in fact Canada did receive its fair share of the limited supply of medical isotopes then available over the course of the NRU outage period.

In summary, Madam Chair, we believe we acted swiftly and worked diligently to address the medical isotope supply shortage caused by this outage. However, the reality is that there is no source of backup supply that can fulfill the worldwide gap that NRU creates as a result of an extended shutdown. Clearly, it is imperative that government, industry, and the nuclear medicine community collectively find a long-term solution for the reliable supply of isotopes from Canada.

Thank you.

We're available for your questions.

[Grant Malkoske]

We did get some material from South Africa, and the material from Europe arrived two days after Bill C-38 was passed, so it was late. I think I mentioned in my statement that it really was only an incremental amount, that it only gave us 20% of our needs, and therefore there was a shortage.

[Grant Malkoske, Vice President, Strategic Technologies and Global Logistics, MDS Nordion]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, my name is Grant Malkoske. I'm vice-president of strategic technologies at MDS Nordion. Accompanying me is David McInnes, vice-president international relations. We'd like to thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee on this most important matter.

l would like to mention up front that we were unable, regrettably, to have our remarks translated into French because of the short notice we were given to appear.

MDS Nordion is an Ottawa-based life sciences company with over 700 employees at locations in Laval, Quebec, Vancouver, and Belgium. As a leading supplier of medical isotopes, we welcome this opportunity to provide our perspective on the 2007 isotope supply shortage event.

This event had a significant impact on medical isotope production and our ability to supply medical isotopes to the nuclear medicine community and, in turn, that community's ability to supply to hospitals, physicians, and patients. This event has significantly damaged Canada's global reputation as a supplier to the nuclear medicine community and ours as well.

It is important to understand that there is a sequence of steps in the medical isotope supply chain before patients are actually treated in a hospital. These steps involve a reactor, a processor, a radiopharmaceutical manufacturer, and a hospital or radiopharmacy.

The AECL NRU reactor is our primary source of medical isotopes. MDS Nordion is the processor of these medical isotopes at our facility in Ottawa. It is important to note that MDS Nordion is not the direct supplier to hospitals. We distribute medical isotopes to our customers, radiopharmaceutical companies, all of whom are based outside of Canada. Our customers, in turn, manufacture the radiopharmaceuticals and distribute them to hospitals and radiopharmacies in Canada and worldwide. There are two American companies that are our customers and supply all of Canada's radiopharmaceutical products.

Every day NRU and MDS Nordion-produced medical isotopes enable some 5,000 nuclear medicine diagnostic tests and cancer therapies to be performed in Canada alone. Furthermore, Canadian-produced medical isotopes are responsible for supplying a total of over 50% of the world's medical isotopes, which would apply to some 60,000 procedures per day.

One important aspect in this supply picture is the global production capacity. NRU is the most reliable reactor in the world for medical isotope production. Its supply reliability exceeds 97%. There are only three other sources to call upon for backup supply: South Africa, Belgium, and the Netherlands. If one of these reactors goes off-line, NRU can quickly ramp up to meet 100% of the additional demand. However, the reverse is not true, as we saw last November and December.

If NRU is off-line for more than seven days, no other foreign reactor or combination of foreign reactors can fully fill the supply gap left by NRU. Even with the world's other reactors ramping up to capacity, there was still approximately a 35% total global shortage in medical isotopes. That gap would have persisted if the NRU reactor remained off-line.

On the evening of November 21 we were informed that NRU would not be restarting after its scheduled shutdown. At that point it was not clear when the reactor would resume isotope production. It is important to understand that the information we were provided was in constant flux with regard to resolution options and restart schedules.

Nevertheless, we immediately initiated our contingency protocol for such emergencies. With only two days of inventory remaining, we immediately began notifying affected customers, the radiopharmaceutical manufacturers. We remained in close contact with them over the course of the outage period.

On the morning of November 22, in a meeting with AECL, we were informed of the potential extent of the NRU outage. We advised AECL that this outage would cause a shortage of global supply of approximately 30%.

On the afternoon of November 22, we attended a regularly scheduled meeting arranged by AECL with Natural Resources Canada and us. At that meeting we reiterated the estimated impact of this outage on global supply.

On November 23, we contacted other suppliers in South Africa, Belgium, and the Netherlands in an attempt to source backup supply. Over the course of the outage event, we were in daily contact with these other isotope suppliers.

We also took a series of additional steps to try to facilitate isotope supply: we obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to combine any available backup supply in any proportion; we contacted the Belgian nuclear regulator to validate the shortage crisis and enable special dispensation for increasing processing limits at the Belgian processing facility; and we shipped licensed containers to our suppliers around the world to facilitate immediate shipments should any material become available that could be shipped to Canada.

Despite these persistent attempts to source backup supply, we were only able to get a marginal amount of isotopes from abroad, about 20% of what we needed.

All backup received by MDS Nordion prior to the time that Bill C-38 was passed on December 12 came from South Africa. We were not able to get any backup supply from Europe.

We believe we acted swiftly and worked diligently to address the medical isotope supply shortage caused by this outage. However, the reality is that there is no source of backup supply that can fulfill the worldwide gap that NRU creates as a result of an extended shutdown. Clearly, it is imperative that government, industry, and the nuclear medicine community collectively find a long-term solution for the reliable supply of isotopes from Canada.

Thank you for the opportunity. We're available for your questions.

Chalk River Nuclear Facilities

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Again, Mr. Speaker, the facts are very clear in this situation. We had to act. The former president had a number of options available to her to resolve this issue. She chose not to act. Those facts were clear.

This matter was brought before Parliament and ultimately it took this Parliament, every party and every single member, to support Bill C-38 so that the reactor could resume operations and Canadians' lives did not need to be put at risk unnecessarily. This government acted and did what it had to do.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Now that we have the first 30-day report to the House of Commons in relation to Bill C-38 from AECL, and while the work on the second pump will be completed as expected within the 120-day period, and since the CNSC was going to take weeks to grant a licence on a one-pump solution, if it was going to grant one at all—and of course the reactor is in routine shutdown right now for maintenance—what would have been the effect, had we not gone forward with Bill C-38, on the world's medical isotope supply and, more importantly, the impact on the people who were waiting for them?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do have some opening remarks.

Before answering questions, I will review the measures taken by my department when it became aware of the prolonged shutdown of the NRU reactors in Chalk River and the ensuing shortage of medical isotopes.

Of course, I'm addressing this issue, Mr. Chair, from my perspective as the federal Minister of Health and my mandate to help protect, maintain, and improve the health of Canadians.

As members know, the Chalk River reactor is a critical source of medical isotopes in Canada and indeed worldwide. Radioisotopes are used in diagnosing and treating cancer and cardiovascular disease. They are relied upon by health care facilities in Canada and around the world.

In Canada alone, approximately 30,000 patients per week undergo nuclear medicine scans. As well, Chalk River provides isotopes for 76,000 tests per day worldwide. When the NRU reactor was shut down from November 18 to mid-December, I can tell you it significantly reduced the supply of these isotopes in Canada and around the world. In all, MDS Nordion estimates a 65% reduction of the isotopes in Canada during this period.

As soon as this fact was announced on December 5, we started taking immediate action. We began working with provinces and territories and with health system partners to determine the extent of the shortage and to assess options to respond effectively.

We communicated with nuclear medicine specialists to assess how best to manage the impacts on the health care system and on patients. We contacted 773 health care facilities across Canada, including up to 245 nuclear medicine facilities to determine the severity of the shortage. I personally communicated with provincial and territorial health ministers, and my officials kept in close contact with their provincial and territorial counterparts closely monitoring the situation as it evolved.

We also contacted other international agencies to determine the extent of the shortages worldwide. We quickly formed a group of experts from the fields of oncology, cardiology, and nuclear medicine, as well as representatives of the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine.

I want to refer, if I may, to the information we received from this group. Some people out there seem to think there really wasn't a health crisis after all and our response was overblown. Let me say that based on the information we gained from our advisory group, such people are absolutely wrong. This advisory group made it crystal clear to our government that we certainly were in the midst of what was a growing health crisis and one that needed action. This group estimated that approximately 10% of affected patients were facing life and death decisions and another 30% to 40% were facing the risk of underequipped physicians making inappropriate diagnostic and treatment decisions. In short, Mr. Chair, the situation was not sustainable and certainly not acceptable.

In realizing the impacts of the shortage, the Canadian Medical Association issued a statement saying that nuclear medicine services were now being rationed across Canada; that patients were deprived of timely access to critical diagnostic procedures; that this was impacting diagnostic services, timely surgery, and therapy planning, placing patients increasingly at risk; and that the decision to take the reactor off-line for an extended period of time had already affected critical medical management decisions and the numbers affected would escalate every day that the shutdown was in effect.

The most severe shortages were felt in smaller rural and remote centres, particularly in Atlantic Canada. One hospital in Newfoundland told me that most of their staff in nuclear medicine had been sent home because without isotopes no work could be done. Their last generator expired at noon on December 7 and they had no backup. All appointments for patients had been cancelled and all emergency patients were being turned away. For the health of Canadians we needed production to resume to prevent even more hospitals from going without. In the short term, the situation was threatening lives. If left unchecked over the long term, the situation would have started taking lives.

Given the serious consequences to the health of Canadians, we had a responsibility to seek information from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission about ways to resolve the growing health crisis. We wanted to see if there could be an expeditious hearing to consider the merits of AECL's safety case without in any way directing that the commission reach a particular conclusion, but as we know, such a hearing did not take place.

Our government then issued a directive stipulating that the commission's decisions take into account the health of Canadians who are dependent upon nuclear substances for medical purposes, but that had no effect. As a result, the government had to take the decisive action on December 12, proposing C-38 to Parliament. Following all-party passage of that bill, the reactor came back online on December 19 and isotope deliveries resumed during the holidays.

I believe we acted in such a way that we balanced the likelihood of a potential incident of nuclear safety with the real certainty--the real certainty--of a serious and growing health crisis. For this action, the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine publicly thanked the Prime Minister, myself, and all members of Parliament “of all political stripes”, to use their words, for the fast legislative action.

Some have said we could have obtained extra supply from international sources. Indeed, we moved quickly to try to obtain supply from the four other suppliers in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and South Africa. We contacted European suppliers. They were willing to help, but they found they could only increase their output by 10% to 15%, which would not be enough to meet Canadian demand. Also during this time, French and South African reactors were going through their own routine maintenance and were unable to meet Canada's supply shortage. Furthermore, time for producing and transporting these isotopes was significant, especially given the short lifespan of these products. In short, Mr. Chair, it was not an option to meet Canada's demand from international suppliers, particularly since Chalk River produces more than half the world's supply.

Now that production and delivery has resumed, my officials are continuing our work with the expert advisory group to examine contingency plans in the event of any future supply disruption. This work includes assessing the possibility of alternative sources of medical isotopes, along with substitute diagnostic techniques that could be used if needed. In addition, this work is also looking at opportunities for enhancing international collaboration to coordinate supply. Our expert advisory group will be preparing its initial assessment in February. At that point, I intend to convene health care professionals, provincial and territorial representatives, and other experts to assess the lessons learned and discuss the work of the expert advisory group.

Of course, one very important issue to consider in all of this is timely information sharing. Going forward to ensure timely notification of issues that may affect supply, we have developed a notification protocol among AECL, Natural Resources Canada, and Health Canada. This protocol provides clarity about who needs to be contacted and when. As well, it states that information will be shared immediately when it concerns the operations of the Chalk River reactor and, as a result, the supply of medical isotopes.

Under the new protocol, once my department receives timely information about a potential supply impact, a process will be triggered to contact provinces, territories, and relevant experts to assess the potential impact and launch strategies to respond. We will also be more closely monitoring information from suppliers, along with clinical trial and import licence applications, all of which could be early warning signals of potential medical isotope supply issues.

Let me give you an example. Health Canada receives routine requests from companies, including medical isotope supply companies, seeking special importation permits to adjust to supply shortages. This request is not unusual, and in fact we received one on December 3 from a company that had made the same request twice before in the past year.

As I mentioned earlier, when we were faced with the situation of shortages in early December, we took responsible action. I want to thank members from all parties—the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Bloc along with my fellow Conservatives—in both the House of Commons and the Senate—for passing our legislation so quickly.

In closing, I want to reiterate my central point that we had to act. Repeated requests to the regulator to see about an expeditious hearing were not met. Consequently, with all-party support in Parliament, we passed the necessary legislation, and the CMA and the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine thanked us.

I will leave it at that and say that partisan considerations aside, we're all here to do the utmost for human health and well-being. It was in that spirit that I believe we acted with good sense.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Keen, for appearing.

I echo some of the sentiments that were made by my colleagues. I won't go into them all, but you have in your presentation to us today echoed some of the words I've used, as to the magnitude of the decision we had to grapple with in Parliament in December around Bill C-38 and with regard to confidence that Canadians have about nuclear safety for the future, based on what has happened here.

I want to thank you for your thoughtful presentation. I will get right to my questions, because I don't get a lot of time.

You have been with the Nuclear Safety Commission for seven years?

[Linda Keen, Commission member, Ex-President, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, members of the committee, for this opportunity to meet with you today.

The recent events surrounding the nuclear facility at Chalk River and their impact on the supply of medical isotopes has raised a lot of questions among Canadians.

Canadians want to know—quite rightly—how such a situation could have developed. And they want to know what role the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission played in these events.

This morning I'd like to answer those questions, and I hope the information I supply will be helpful to this committee as it carries on its work.

First, why didn't the CNSC just go ahead and allow the NRU to operate without the emergency power system connected, given that there was a medical crisis, and why did the CNSC close it down?

The role of the CNSC is to ensure the safety of Canadians by regulating Canada's nuclear facilities. That's our job, that's our responsibility, and that's what the law prescribes. Some have suggested that the chance of a nuclear accident was low and the reactor was safe enough. With respect, safe enough is simply not good enough. Safety at a nuclear facility needs to meet the same high standards we expect from a space shuttle or a jumbo jet. The regulations the commission enforces and the standards it upholds are about far more than pushing paper; they are really about protecting lives. That's why when it comes to nuclear facilities, ignoring safety requirements is simply not an option--not now, not ever.

Some will say that the operation of a reactor always carries some risk with it, and that's true. But there are carefully established international standards as to what constitutes an acceptable risk. In the case of a nuclear fuel failure, the international standard for acceptable risk is one in a million. The chance of such an event happening at Chalk River without either of those pumps connected to the emergency power supply was one in a thousand. That is a thousand times greater than the international standard. Remember that NRU, as originally designed and constructed over 50 years ago, would not be licensable today by any nuclear regulator in the world.

There seems to be an impression left that CNSC ordered the NRU shut down. In fact, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited shut it down on November 19, 2007, for routine maintenance. It was AECL that extended that shutdown, because, as its senior vice-president told a CNSC public meeting on December 6, 2007:

the only safe and prudent action available to me, I believe, in this situation was to shut the--keep the reactor shut down and perform those upgrades.

The commission's responsibility was to oversee that those upgrades were completed by AECL. Prior to the passage of Bill C-38, those upgrades were not in place.

The second question was why the CNSC didn't take into account the effect of a shutdown on the production of medical isotopes. This is an important question that goes directly to the mandate of the CNSC.

As I mentioned, our primary responsibility in the case of this facility is to protect Canadians by ensuring that the nuclear facility is operating safely. Under the law, the commission did not have the authority to take the issue of isotopes into consideration when making its decision up to December 10. Indeed, in its directive of December 10, 2007, the government implicitly recognized this limitation on the commission's mandate by seeking to expand its authority to include consideration of the availability of isotopes. Such an expansion would not have been necessary if the commission already had that responsibility. The fact is it did not.

That said, the CNSC has always been very sensitive to the importance of these isotopes. The medical community relied on them and patients needed them; that's why the commission took every action available to it under the law to alleviate the situation. As the body responsible for licensing hospitals and clinics that use medical isotopes, the commission was able to amend licences on request in less than 24 hours to permit the use of alternative isotopes and to increase their inventory. That was within our mandate.

AECL itself recognized these efforts in a letter to the commission dated December 7, 2007, where it said:

We believe that the health care community and the public at large have been reassured by the CNSC's demonstrated sensitivity to the importance of the beneficial use of radioisotopes....

To further alleviate the isotope situation, the commission also agreed to fast-track a complete application from AECL to get the reactor up and running, with a commitment to meet within 24 hours rather than the usual 60 days. In addition, the commission advised AECL that commission staff stood ready on a 24/7 basis to do everything in their power to help.

The third question is, why has the CNSC made such a big deal about its independence?

Well, Mr. Chair, independence in regulating nuclear facilities matters. It matters because nuclear reactors are in communities where Canadians live.

People in Chalk River, in Clarington, and in Bécancour all depend on the CNSC to ensure their families are safe. They need to know that the commission will make its decisions based on what's right. Indeed, Parliament delegates decision-making powers to these independent bodies like the CNSC precisely to preserve public confidence in the fairness of the process and the safety of the facilities. Under the law, that's how it's supposed to work. The Nuclear Safety and Control Act establishes the CNSC as a quasi-judicial body, as a court of record, and like a court, to be free of interference.

The government itself recognized the importance of such independence in its Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers, 2006, which states:

The nature of the relationship between a Minister and an administrative tribunal with independent decision-making or quasi-judicial functions is a particularly sensitive issue. Ministers must not intervene in specific decisions of those bodies.

So the importance of independence is not something I've come to recently, as a matter of convenience.

That is why, before every hearing—and I have presided over hundreds as President of the CNSC—I read out a statement explaining the independence of the Commission.

So I haven't come to this recently. It's not a matter of convenience; it's a principle that I've insisted on.

Question 4, and relatedly, how did the CNSC react to Parliament's decision to legislate the reopening of the NRU reactor?

Well, Mr. Chair, Parliament is supreme, period. Neither I nor any Canadian would ever question the right of Parliament to act as it did.

Parliament was faced with two competing interests: nuclear safety, on the one hand, and the need for medical isotopes, on the other—not an easy decision, and one appropriately made by the elected representatives of Canadians.

Since the passage of that legislation, and as long as I was president, the CNSC has done everything it can to ensure it is in compliance with that bill. I also launched a lessons learned study led by international experts, a study that the commission had hoped would feed into a wider government review.

Mr. Chair, the situation that developed at Chalk River was one that no one sought and few foresaw. Different actors had different roles to play and different responsibilities to fulfill. I believe that at all times the CNSC acted as mandated by Parliament, as the body charged with ensuring nuclear safety.

Beyond that, Mr. Chair, I would hope that we would focus on learning the lessons of Chalk River so that this situation would never arise again. Canadians shouldn't have to choose between nuclear safety and medical isotopes; they should be assured of both.

To do that, we need to be sure that we have appropriate systems in place and that the roles and accountabilities are clearly defined. Canadians expect no more and they deserve no less.

With that, I thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am now available to answer questions.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Not at all. In fact I believe we acted in a very expeditious manner from December 3 until, I believe, December 12, when Parliament passed Bill C-38 in nine days. I believe that. And if you look at the chronology of events and the actions we took trying to resolve this matter, it should never have had to come to Parliament. The powers were within the office of the president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to resolve this. The former president and CEO of the commission chose not to exercise those powers. That is why we have taken the course of action that we have. We have a duty as the Government of Canada to act, and that is in fact exactly what we did.

As the member said earlier in testimony, it was difficult to oppose this bill. I agree. This was an important piece of legislation. All parties supported it for the right reasons.

We were left with no choice but to put this bill before Parliament, because it became clear that had we not, the former president of the commission would not exercise her executive powers, and lives were at stake. That is why we have taken the action that we have.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

At that point, when we actually put the bill before Parliament, the inventory of isotopes was down by over 65%. Up until that point, in the days leading up to it, we were briefed by officials that we were cancelling diagnostic procedures across the country, but we were literally days away from cancelling serious medical procedures, such as cancer treatments, the impact being that people would die. So this was very serious.

That is why we had to put this matter before Parliament with Bill C-38 to give us the authority that we could resume production when it became apparent that this was not a safety issue.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Yet it seems that in the House of Commons, before we even got to the point of the debate on Bill C-38, the Prime Minister's comments led us to believe that he had lost confidence in Ms. Keen long before that.

I'm trying to ascertain the sequence of events and her commitment to nuclear safety and your directive to her to look at medical safety. Was that a shift in her responsibilities at the time, or was that something that was within her purview before?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

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.

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I think the testimony on Bill C-38 indicates that this government and the ministers acted as quickly as possible upon learning the information.

The real question is why the deputy leader of the opposition does not listen to himself. He says this was a crisis, but as late as this Tuesday afternoon, he was still insisting the government should defer to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, to Ms. Keen, and not act at all. That is the position he is going to have to explain.

Sitting Resumed

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Ms. Keen, just to be clear, would it help you to have in Bill C-38 a clause explicitly asserting that nothing derogates from your authority in respect of Chalk River during this 120 day period?

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, this is a question for the regulator, Ms. Keen.

The Minister of Natural Resources some time ago gave an assurance to the House based on a legal opinion that the authority of the regulator under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act would continue to apply to Chalk River in the 120 day period, except in respect of the installation of seismically qualified motor starters on heavy water pumps.

If that opinion was added to Bill C-38 in the form of an amendment that would say, “Nothing in this act derogates from the authority of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in respect of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited”, that is, if that legal opinion offered by the minister was in the bill, would it enable the CNSC as a regulator to continue to discharge its regulatory duties in respect of the NRU at Chalk River?

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Chair, I have a few questions and an observation or two. I am going to share my time with some of my colleagues.

First, I would ask the Minister of Natural Resources for clarification because I have heard a couple of different perspectives on this one issue.

I heard Ms. Keen say earlier in her testimony that because of clause 2 of Bill C-38, in effect, for the 120 day period, AECL would be unregulated. Yet I have heard from the minister that this is not the case in his opinion. From a legal perspective, I assume that some of the minister's lawyers have taken a look at it.

I would like a little more precision on why the minister would say that in effect for that 120 days AECL would still be regulated.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, if the legislation passes, if we pass Bill C-38, could Madam Commissioner please outline for us the effect the legislation would have on CNSC's ability to discharge its regulatory responsibilities, given that this is a temporary measure for 120 days under the proposed legislation? I would ask her to speak to the impact of this legislation and the discharge of her responsibilities as a regulator.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would ask Madam Commissioner if she has had an opportunity to review Bill C-38, the legislation tabled before the House today.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, this side of the House is very aware that we are faced with a serious issue both of nuclear safety and public health. We are here, it seems to me, to focus on one question above all. Is the legislation, Bill C-38, proposed by the government necessary to resolve this crisis or is there any other way that we can go?

This side of the House remains anxious to resolve this crisis as expeditiously as possible, but we need to consult with experts like yourself to assess the nuclear safety risk and the public health risk, which we will investigate with other witnesses.

The letter of December 10 to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Health indicates that the CNSC had “serious concerns” regarding the safety of the 50 year old NRU reactor when its former licence was due to expire. What specifically were the safety issues and, perhaps, safety upgrades that it was felt were mandatory as a condition of renewal of licence?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Chair, it is a great opportunity to speak. We are here to discuss Bill C-38 and to discuss the extended shutdown of the Atomic Energy of Canada NRU reactor at Chalk River and the serious shortage of medical isotopes it has created.

I want to state from the outset, upon learning of this situation, our number one priority all along has been 100% solely focused on resuming the production of isotopes or looking for an alternative supply. We believe this was the thing we had to resolve.

I can advise the House that on November 30, Natural Resources Canada and my office received an email from government relations, and I did not personally receive this, on the Friday, not raising any alarm bells and advising them that the reactor would resume operations early in December.

After the weekend, upon learning of this and discussing it with the deputy on December 4, we immediately launched into action, with our focus on resuming the production of medical isotopes and looking at all the options available to us, both in Canada and around the globe. I am working very closely with the officials at the Department of Health.

I and my deputy engaged in conversations with both AECL and the CNSC on December 5 and December 8. We encouraged both parties to look constructively and to work cooperatively together for any possible solution on how we could expedite the situation we were in.

Again, that was followed up by correspondence by myself and the Minister of Health, with letters to both organizations encouraging that in writing and following that, receiving their responses.

We are now before the House after we believe we have received the advice of the experts that we can resume production of this facility in an absolutely safe manner.

Therefore, we have presented Bill C-38 to the House as we believe it is in the public interest of Canadians. This reactor is responsible for some 25,000 medical procedures a day.

We look forward to receiving questions from all opposition parties and members of the House. We look forward to their support so we can resume the operation of the reactor to resume production of medical isotopes.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Chair, I am speaking today in support of the government's legislation, Bill C-38, to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River.

As the Chair knows, the extended shutdown of this reactor has resulted in a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes. These isotopes are used by physicians for cancer and heart disease treatment and diagnostic tests.

This shortage has resulted in an intolerable situation in which cancer and heart disease treatments and diagnostic tests are being delayed or cancelled.

Our government is very concerned about the fact that Canadians are unable to obtain the treatment they need.

We have learned that many institutions have very limited supplies and some centres, particularly in the Atlantic provinces and in smaller communities across the country, are focusing on emergency patients only.

If the shortage goes on any longer, it will have a serious impact on public health in several provinces. We are already seeing some of the effects.

One hospital in Newfoundland and Labrador, for instance, has told me that most of its staff in nuclear medicine has been sent home. Without isotopes, there is no work to do. Its last generator expired at 12 noon last Friday and its has no backup. All appointments for patients have been cancelled and all emergency patients are being turned away.

Another gentleman in St. Catharines, Ontario, suffering from cancer, had his badly needed treatment this morning cancelled because the hospital did not have the necessary nuclear isotopes.

Dr. Brian Day, president of the Canadian Medical Association, has indicated that the CMA is “very concerned” about the situation and that, “In balancing relative risk, it is important to ensure that the serious and immediate human health consequences of the isotope shortage are fully taken into account”.

This is obviously a very critical situation, and resuming medical isotope production is an immediate priority for Canada's government. In fact, ensuring that cancer patients receive their treatment should be a priority for all the members in the House, and I urge them all to support this legislation.

We reacted promptly and firmly the moment we were alerted to this extended shutdown of the reactor and we are exploring all our options. We remain in constant contact with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to ensure that those two organizations cooperate to find a solution to this severe shortage.

We have been working with our officials as well as national and international partners to identify alternative sources of supply in other countries, other isotopes that can be applied and other diagnostic options which may be available.

We have worked diligently toward resolving the situation, but the best solution for Canadians would be to make these necessary medical isotopes available as quickly as possible. For this, we need to get the reactor at Chalk River up and running again. That is why I support Bill C-38.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Pursuant to order made earlier today, Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, is deemed read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole.

I do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of the whole.

(House in committee of the whole on Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, hon. Bill Blaikie in the chair.)

Suspension of Sitting

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

At this time, pursuant to the agreement earlier in the day, the chair now recesses the House and the House will resume at the call of the chair to go into committee of the whole on Bill C-38.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 6:35 p.m.)

[For continuation of proceedings see part B]

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that at the conclusion of private members' hour the House will, subject to a recess as may be necessary to facilitate the physical setup, immediately proceed to the consideration of Bill C-38.

I can also advise that it has been indicated to me that all of the witnesses we have listed in the motion are intending to be here to testify before the committee of the whole and provide evidence.

I would additionally add that the Minister of Health and the Minister of Natural Resources will also be available, but are not listed in the motion because of course of their status as members of the House.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-38, An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)