Thank you, Chair.
NDP-17 seeks to amend the legislation.
Just in terms of the time allotted in terms of somebody's ability to come back and file for compensation, under C-20 we have a number of limitations. One of them is around the actual liability limit, but it also imposes a ultimate period of 30 years. A number of witnesses who came before us said that the 30-year limit is artificially low and that some cancers that are caused by exposure to nuclear pollution can manifest over a much longer period of time.
There's a corresponding piece of legislation in the U.S. called the Price-Anderson Act that no longer has this limitation period of 30 years, or any such limitation. Where they modify the act in the U.S. is they say it's three years after the moment of first recognized harm. So once the cancer is identified, if cancer is the case, you have three years to report it. That seems reasonable.
But the 30-year limit on discovery often.... Unfortunately, we know as individuals, people in our family often have cancer that goes undiscovered for a number of years. Something happens consequentially and then they go in for a test and they find out they have cancer. But it manifested maybe many years before. That's also true with the types of cancer caused by exposure to nuclear radiation.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association brought this evidence forward to committee, and the committee has also received a number of letters from folks across Canada, some of them in the medical profession.
So that's essentially the amendment, Chair. It seeks to modify C-20 exactly that way. I would be curious as to the committee's opinions about the need to remove that one stipulation within the act.