I know Mr. Rosenberg is an able man. I had the pleasure of serving as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health for 18 months, at the time Mr. Rosenberg came into his present duties.
I became aware of the situation when you had news articles appearing by the Canadian press on December 1 and you had a CBC story from Halifax on December 4. I'm not privy now to the clippings that are collected by your department on a daily basis. Your department won't share that with opposition critics, but we find them. Your department was aware at that time. There's no way such a situation can come....
I can't conceive that on November 22 the chairman of AECL would find out about an extended shutdown.... Mr. Burns, ironically, is in charge of nuclear energy--it reminds me a bit of The Simpsons. And he's not a Liberal hack; he's a Conservative appointee as chairman of that corporation. He says that the Minister of Natural Resources was advised at that same time.
Now, I've been a minister before. I know that advice to the minister isn't necessarily on the minister's desk at the same time, but I can assure you it's in the minister's office on that day, or in the deputy minister's office. I can't conceive that you could have an extended shutdown at Natural Resources on November 22 and that the Minister of Natural Resources would only find out on December 3, and that the Minister of Health would only find out on December 5, or that nobody in the Department of Health.... I'm sure Nordion put out a press release on November 21, I believe.