Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
First of all, if there was any tiny bit of a silver lining I felt when I got fired, it was that perhaps people were going to pay attention to this issue and would not ignore the issue anymore. I say that because it was really clear at the time that AECL, its board of directors, its upper management, and the government had just become so fascinated with the idea of new reactors that every conversation was about new reactors and a nuclear renaissance, and not about some of the bread-and-butter issues, including the NRU and waste management. I thought there was going to be a focus at that time and I thought there would be some work happening.
On the positive side, I think there was work that had happened on the health side with the nuclear medicine specialists. It was obvious in that the ad hoc committee came forward with a report, although one of their report recommendations was to keep MAPLE going, which didn't happen. But I think the Health Canada people did make some real efforts. They didn't develop a crisis management plan, but they had upped their connections with the provinces and the territories.
On the other side of it, which was working with the NRU, with MAPLE, and with alternatives, I was in fact quite shocked a year ago when the minister at the time announced that MAPLE was going to be closed. I knew it had problems, but there was no sense that they couldn't be solved. I was quite surprised.
Also, I was surprised not just that MAPLE was being shut down, but that there were really no alternatives. The alternative was, in my view, pressure on the regulator to agree to another licence. In seven years as a regulator, I never, ever heard a company or a licensee, including the licensees who are here with us today, tell me that their goal was to get a licence. It's to get a facility that's up and running and that meets or exceeds regulatory areas. It was very surprising for me to see that nothing had happened on the supply side, and I know that because I keep in contact with international colleagues, particularly in Europe.
I think it's a very sad type of report that I would give: nothing had happened, and in fact things had become worse in some areas, and there was no plan in place to look at this. As was said here, we know that it closes down for work every six weeks. There is no way you could be hoping to keep this going forever.
My final comment is that after 18 months, it's a bit interesting to hear that it's now a “very old reactor that's very unreliable”, and 18 months ago it was considered neither a very old reactor nor very unreliable. But it hasn't changed a bit. It's been that way for quite some time. It's sad that this had to happen to get the focus on this reactor.
I hope that answers your question.