The only reason I raise this is because we identified that other industries or other forms of power generation exist under different insurance schemes. Most collective agreements would acknowledge general tort law, general law. Government, in order to assist the nuclear industry or to allow it to function--as one of the witnesses said--has created a special limited liability law.
The question I put forward is, in terms of this special regime that has been designed by government, the application of something like a collective agreement doesn't anticipate these types of limited liabilities or workers' compensation formats. We have to recognize that we're addressing certain compensation for groups--understanding the unusual circumstances, the unpredictable circumstances of a nuclear accident--and we identified a whole pot of money that the government is insisting that the provider provide. It's saying they must cover $650 million. It also anticipates that if it's worse than that, Parliament will be able to provide more money.
The collective agreement scenario can't possibly imagine those types of things. I don't know how long EI lasts these days, but it would be some number of months; whereas for a shutdown at a plant that's had a nuclear accident, it's not months that we're usually talking about to get it back online.
I want to understand the court versus tribunal section. You said the tribunal is dealt with later on in terms of its establishment. The reason that's relevant to subclause 16(1) is that as we seek compensation, the decision about setting up a tribunal or just dealing with it through the court will be informative as to how the compensation eventually rolls out. Who makes the choice about setting up a tribunal versus staying with the court?
I want to clarify that you mentioned both of them can happen simultaneously. Is that true?