Thank you for the question, Mr. Strahl.
The federal government does support work on innovation in nuclear technology and research through Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and AECL's federal nuclear S and T program, so there is work going on to support nuclear innovations through that program.
It should also be noted that Sustainable Development Technology Canada funded two innovative nuclear reactor projects. One is Terrestrial Energy's, which is an SMR-related project. They provided $5.7 million to that project in 2016. There is also the General Fusion project, which is for a fusion-related reactor technology being developed in British Columbia. That technology has received two rounds of funding from SDTC, one for $12.7 million in 2016, and an earlier funding of $13.9 million back in 2009.
As a department, Natural Resources is reaching out to its stakeholders to better understand how innovative technologies, including SMRs, could play a role in the government's commitments to supporting clean technologies. We have partnered with Ontario in a study of the feasibility of different SMR technologies. We also funded a study by the Fedoruk Centre on aboriginal attitudes toward nuclear energy to better understand what the possibilities could be for the application of those types of technologies in remote contexts. It is an area that is promising in terms of innovative technology development.
Canada has unique advantages in respect of the potential development of SMR technologies, particularly in having a performance-based regulator able to incorporate different types of technologies in its reviews, as well as conditions that include a lot of remote communities in need of reducing their reliance on diesel and also remote mining operations requiring alternative energy sources, where I think international and domestic companies see potential applications for the SMR technology. We're continuing to work to support the exploration of those opportunities.