Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Let me address a number of assertions that are completely false.
First of all, number one, I was not briefed on November 22 at all. In fact, the department received a brief e-mail--it was four lines long--advising that the scheduled maintenance shutdown would be extended, possibly into December.
With respect to the point that there was no CEO, this is not true, Mr. Chair. In fact, the CEO had retired, and during the interim, until we appointed a new CEO, there was an acting CEO in place.
Mr. Chair, with respect to Mr. Burns' retirement, Mr. Burns conducted himself in an able manner. In fact, he had indicated his intentions to me, I believe, in early November--that his intentions were to retire. Again, there was no connection.
With respect to the Auditor General's report identifying...and as my testimony before committee shows, it is absolutely true that there are issues at Chalk River. There are health and safety and regulatory concerns at Chalk River, and they have been identified for some time. That is why we have more than doubled the amount of funding to AECL for Chalk River to begin dealing with these issues, which have been neglected for literally over a decade. We are putting these funds in to have these.
I want to stress that at no point--at no point--were any of these issues surrounding the NRU reactor or any shortage of funds. There is no way that any of this is connected at all.
I appreciate that the member, for his own reasons, is trying to make the connections, but they are simply not true.