Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for meeting with us today on this bill.
Of course everyone is concerned about energy in this country, and the work coming forward on the nuclear aspect of energy is important. It's important to put it in context with other energy sources, and I think in some ways the question of the cost of liability is an important issue to be taken into account in the choices we make about energy in the future.
If we're looking at nuclear energy as a potential substitute for other forms of energy, then we need to put its cost in context. We have to make a level playing field between its costs and costs of other potential opportunities that we have in the energy field, so it's important to look at the liability that's engaged in nuclear energy. It's certainly greater than wind power or solar power or many of the other alternatives we're looking at for energy sources in this country. They don't contain much liability, and the liability is in relatively small increments, rather than in very large increments.
Of course occurrences are less frequent, but the potential for liability within the nuclear industry is, in the extreme case, very large. I think that's been identified in the United States, where we see a limit of $9.7 billion. There is a two-tier system of liability within the United States for nuclear energy, one borne by the operator and one that fits within the industry as a whole. That's another solution they have to the larger issue of nuclear liability.
When we compare our limits to liability, we can put them in the context of an international standard or we can put them in the context of a North American standard; in this case, the most likely match to our conditions would be our nearest neighbour, the United States.
In some ways the idea of limited liability is archaic. In this bill we're limiting liability for damages to $650 million; however, the liability issues could be quite a bit larger than that, and it may be important to look at it in terms of unlimited liability.
My question to you is this: where did we set this limit, why are we putting the limit where we are, and why are we continuing with a limited liability policy?