Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 29th, 2008

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

If I am permitted, I will answer in English, because my notes are in English on this particular file, and it's important to be exact.

The detailed chronology, which I am quite prepared to table to this committee, indicates that every single day—I don't want to go overboard, but practically every single hour, though not every single hour, for there were a couple of gaps in hours—there was the collection of new information and then decisions made to act and react to the information we were collecting.

Health Canada was first engaged on December 5; I have been quite clear about that. By December 6, we were collecting information and, through our briefing, understanding what potential other sources there were. That's when we first started the contact with South Africa and learned that they were closed down as well.

On December 7, NRCan officials contacted the foreign affairs department, because they take the lead on international engagement, and we started to send notices out to Canadian missions around the world to make the contacts with the key supplier companies.

On December 8, which was a Saturday, I personally contacted the CEO of one of the biggest suppliers in the world, AREVA, in Paris, and that individual was saying that she wanted to be of assistance to us. I started to get them connected into the system as well.

On December 9, the Canadian missions began their démarche with producers and processors and national governments.

On December 10, we got that conference call I referred to with all of the European producers to update them, to gather further intelligence, and to seek their support.

As you can see—and I would encourage you not to look at one day in particular—if you look at it as a stream of days, as more information came in and as more decisions were made on how best to deal with the crisis, obviously more actions were taking place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Minister.

For the last three minutes it's Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just one question to ask, and my colleague, Ms. Gallant, will probably ask a question.

Mr. Minister, I hate to ask you an “if” question, because you always get into these “if the bear hadn't scratched his rear end on the tree, he wouldn't have got splinters either”. If you had been informed earlier about this whole situation, with the benefit of hindsight, could that crisis have been averted and the situation better managed? How would it have been better managed, considering the medical idiosyncrasies of these isotopes?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I was always taught that if “coulds” and “shoulds” were “woulds”, we'd all be lumberjacks. But we're making the same point, I think.

I agree that there are certain aspects of this that could be tightened up, and that's why I think a protocol is so important. But when you look at what was available in terms of international supply and at the fact that this was an unscheduled shutdown—that is to say, a temporary shutdown was extended by the commission—those facts obviously made it difficult to come to any conclusion other than to restart the reactor, and that's what Parliament decided to do.

If we had known a little earlier, there is no question that we could have contacted provincial and territorial governments a bit earlier and could have gotten the experts into the field a little earlier. But when you are dealing with a shelf life for technetium of six hours and for its parent compound of less than three days—66 hours—as I said earlier, stockpiling is not an option. You can't stockpile for a rainy day in this situation, and that is the technical and technological challenge we face in this particular issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Ms. Gallant, you have time for about a 30-second question and then a 30-second answer.

[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, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

It's not my place to be overly dramatic—you don't want overly dramatic health ministers—but I am absolutely convinced that people would have died. I can't say it more plainly than that. I think Parliament was right to act the way it did. Parliament took the health and safety of Canadians into account, and that's what staved off both a national and an international tragedy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister, for your presentation and your answers today. It was very much appreciated. Also, thanks to your staff--the deputy minister and the ADM.

I know you have to get to question period. Go ahead.

Our meeting on Thursday will deal with future committee business.

Madame DeBellefeuille, did you have... ? No?

Okay, then we will adjourn the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.