As members of the committee will know, PV-19 is an attempt to respond to some of the expert legal testimony that was put to the committee, particularly from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, about the nature of the liability. Ms. McClenaghan spoke to the concern that the limits that appear in clause 120 are too low.
As the bill reads now, it's “$650 million for a nuclear incident within one year after the day...”. This is for the compensation for those affected. In proposed paragraph 24(1)(a), it's $650 million. In (b) it's “$750 million for a nuclear incident arising within one year after the year referred to...”. In (c) it's $850 million, and in (d), it's $1 billion.
In relation to those liability limits, my amendment moves them all up in sequence. The lowest would move from being $650 million to being $1 billion. The next level would be $5 billion. The next level after that would be $10 billion. The level that now reads as a $1-billion nuclear incident absolute liability limit would be raised to $20 billion.
Given the experience with nuclear incidents, these are certainly much more realistic levels and reflect what we understand are the costs of real situations should we have, and we obviously hope we never will have, a nuclear incident that's catastrophic.