Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm here on behalf of Ontario Power Generation, and I'm joined by my colleague, Pierre Tremblay, who is the senior vice-president of programs and training at OPG. We are here today to support the early adoption and timely passage of Bill C-20. Thank you for inviting us to speak.
We'll leave you with a deck, which you should have in front of you. I'm not actually going to walk through the deck, which covers the background of OPG, our community support, safety and environmental performance, and a brief update on the new bill.
I'll just give you a quick background on OPG. It is Ontario's largest electricity generator. We produce two-thirds of Ontario's electricity and we own all of Ontario's nuclear reactors, including the ones at Bruce. We operate 10 of the nuclear units, we have a very strong safety and environmental record, and our 12,000 staff are an integral part of all our host communities. Four of the five top CANDU reactors in the world in 2008 were owned by OPG. Three of these reactors are at Darlington and one is at Pickering B. In addition, in the first quarter of 2009, Darlington operated at a capacity of 99.99%, as close to perfect as you can get with a nuclear reactor.
Now I'd like to direct your attention to slides 9 to 11 in the deck. I'd like to speak to the point in front of the committee, which is Bill C-20. OPG strongly supports the immediate passage of Bill C-20 because it modernizes the liability framework placing the liability clearly with the operator—where it belongs—it imposes a reasonable limit on the operator's liability, it provides more protection to the public, and it allows our local and international suppliers to support us on a reasonable insurance framework. We also look forward to being involved in the regulatory process. That should include the ability of the utilities to be involved in any changes to the liability limits, the ability to access insurance at competitive rates from Canadian and/or international providers, and a recognition that this is the first step towards Canadian ratification of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. In summary, OPG supports the early passage of Bill C-20 with the proposed liability limits.
I look forward to answering any questions the committee might have.
Thank you.