Yes, and Mr. Chair, this won't surprise anyone at this time. PV-18, as in previous efforts, attempts to ensure that liability will extend to suppliers and contractors in the nuclear industry. This is based on testimony. Certainly, the committee heard from a number of witnesses, who came from law associations, Greenpeace and others, that there's no rationale provided for shielding nuclear reactor suppliers from liability.
I would just note very quickly that in the attempts at explanations that we've heard from officials, essentially, they have said that we don't have to worry on the nuclear side because we're channelling the liability to the operator. The operator will ensure that the supply chain is held responsible because they're ultimately going to be liable for a nuclear accident. That same explanation would work on the oil and gas side.
One could say the project proponent, the operator, will make sure that all suppliers and contractors are responsible and accountable because the ultimate liability and costs will rest with them.
Again, I don't think we really have an explanation for why the nuclear industry is being treated differently, except for the fact that, historically, and I mean going back to the 1950s, the nuclear industry has always been treated differently in this country. It probably stems from the fact that nuclear materials were seen to be a military target. We had a lot less transparency around the nuclear industry.
Traditionally, the nuclear industry has been the recipient of billions of dollars in subsidies and it tends to continue, under Bill C-22, to be treated differently from the more private sector industries in this country. Of course, as the nuclear industry in Canada is being operated now by more private sector companies, as the role of AECL has changed, there's less and less excuse for treating the nuclear industry differently from the way we treat other sectors in the economy.