Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

What do you say to the other doctors who say the isotopes would have made their jobs easier and would have been more efficient but...? Why are they saying what they're saying?

[Dr. Christopher O'Brien]

The two other doctors come from large academic centres where the impact isn't as great as in community hospital settings like Sarnia, Brantford General, Pembroke Regional, and Sydney, Nova Scotia. In those situations, the department of nuclear medicine plays a significant role in the management of acute presentation of specific types of diseases. When you don't have that availability in the community hospital setting, the impact is large.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you.

My question is to MDS Nordion.

Mr. Malkoske, in your opening remarks you said this shortage will be damaging to Canada's reputation. Can you elaborate on that? Is it Canada's reputation or MDS Nordion's reputation?

[Grant Malkoske]

I think it's both. Canada is well known around the world as a major producer and supplier of medical isotopes. Nordion is certainly affiliated with that because of the role we play in the supply chain. It is clearly known to people around the world that the NRU reactor, which is Canada's pre-eminent isotope producer, is the source of the majority of the world's medical isotopes.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I don't know if this is accurate, but we were told that AECL gets approximately $30 million in sales revenue from MDS Nordion from the isotopes. Is that a rough figure? Does that make sense to you?

[Grant Malkoske]

I really wouldn't like to comment on that, if I could, but certainly AECL supplies most of the isotopes. I'm not sure where the information came from.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you buy isotopes from somewhere else?

[Grant Malkoske]

We buy very small amounts. We have backup supply arrangements with some of the other reactor producers, notably in South Africa and Belgium. To maintain activity in that arrangement, we buy very small amounts.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Did you bring any from abroad during the shutdown?

[Grant Malkoske]

We were supplied with a very small amount, as I mentioned earlier, from South Africa. We did not receive anything from Europe.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Why not?

[Grant Malkoske]

Basically they were at capacity. I think I mentioned that when these other reactors ramp up they can only supply about 65% of the world's needs. So you're immediately into a shortfall.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

But why did we hear reports that Europe was willing and capable of supplying us with isotopes? I'm not going to argue how much.

[Grant Malkoske]

I really don't know why they would say that. If you recall in my comments, we were in contact with them daily. We informed them of the situation. We implored them to ramp up capacity and provide us with everything they could, yet we got only about 20% of our requirements from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

We'll go now to the Bloc Québécois, Madame DeBellefeuille, for up to seven minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning. My question is for you, Mr. Malkoske. I'm going to speak slowly because I believe you don't understand French. You said in your introduction that, on November 20, you were informed that the reactor would probably be shut down for an extended period of time. If I understood correctly, you immediately sensed an emergency and you executed your emergency protocol.

Mr. Malkoske, I find it curious that the Minister of Health and the Minister of Natural Resources stated in their testimony in our committee that they didn't sense the emergency until about December 4 or 5.

How is it that MDS Nordion sensed the emergency on November 20 and foresaw the problems that might arise, and that the two ministers didn't sense an emergency until December 4 and 5? Do you have an explanation for that?

[Grant Malkoske]

Thank you for the question.

Frankly, I can't explain why the ministers would have responded the way they did. That's something you would have to take up with them.

However, if you look at the situation, NRU was already in a maintenance shutdown, and towards the end of that cycle we were informed it was not going to come back up. We did not know yet the extent of the shutdown. So we were already in a situation where inventory was depleted and we had to move.

When something like that happens we immediately move to make sure we can start sourcing isotope. What we didn't know on the night of the 21st was the extent of the outage, how long it would go on, and what the ultimate impact would be. But we already knew that we were running into inventory shortages and wanted to start getting a backup supply. So with the information we had, we executed our emergency protocol to start getting this backup supply.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

So—

[David McInnes, Vice President, International Relations, MDS Nordion]

Mr. Chairman, may I make one short clarification?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Do it quickly, please, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. McInnes.

[David McInnes]

The honourable member mentioned we were informed on the 20th, but we were first informed on the 21st. I just want to make sure that is on the record.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

You know, one day won't make a difference.

You say you sensed the emergency around the twenty-first, that you were responsible and that you acted. My question is still unanswered. We received assurances that the ministers sensed the emergency around December 4 or 5, which we think is completely unacceptable and irresponsible.

In that crisis, who was the main contact with whom your company did business? Your information came from a person at AECL or someone from the department. Who was your opposite in that crisis? Who did you speak and negotiate with at AECL and the department? Who are those people?

[Grant Malkoske]

As I mentioned, we had meetings with AECL on the morning of November 22. There were senior representatives—