Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank everyone for coming and having to answer the same questions over and over, but I know that you are finally flushing out some of the answers. I think most of us are concerned about the immediate availability of isotopes for all of the various needs. I think we have been told by the minister that there was going to be a sufficient supply, and for those that weren't sufficient in terms of the isotopes, there would be ones that could be substituted.
I first want to ask you, are there substitutes?
The second thing I heard is on the medium and long term, because I believe we know the reactors are always subject to breakdown faults, etc., so we could be looking at this happening over and over if we depend for isotopes solely on reactors. We know PET, obviously. I must say that I heard in fact in the United States for the first time this year that they sold more PET cameras than they sold SPECT cameras, so they are seeing a movement towards PET.
I wanted to talk a bit about that sustainable supply of isotopes. We know that here in Canada we have TRIUMF, which is working on small cyclotrons that can fit into regional hospitals where you can continue to produce your supplies as you need them. We also know that, as Dr. McEwan said, while PET gives you as good a picture, or some say better, it also can have markers that can find out if a tumour, for instance, is estrogen-dependent, etc., so you can actually focus on your treatment exactly rather than guessing the treatment.
So my question is, given that we know that TRIUMF could, with $50 million, be online and ready to produce in 2012 these small cameras using photofission, why is it that we're not talking about that as a reliable, clean source of production that would allow everyone to be able to turn on and off their cyclotrons as they need them, and then turn them off when they don't? It's an easy turn on and off cyclotron. It could cost us more, but in the long run it also puts Canada in the driver's seat for new, alternative technology for producing isotopes. What do you think of that?
I look at everybody shaking their heads. I don't know if that's a yes or a no.