Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. I would agree with him that the issue of the medical isotopes from Chalk River is a matter of life and death. We do need those isotopes to continue to provide the kind of medical service that they have been providing, not only to Canadians but to the rest of the world. My colleague is very critical of the current government for failing to take measures that would have ensured the continuation of this production.
He also said that it takes 10 years to build a reactor. The reactor at Chalk River is now 50 years old and worn out. I guess 10 years ago would have been the time to try to fix this problem and put in a duplication of effort or redundancy as he talked about.
I am questioning whether this problem came about in 2005 or 2006 since the Conservative government came into power or whether this problem should have been dealt with by the previous Liberal government 10 years ago in the late nineties. Could he respond to that? I ask that sincerely because I know the member was sincere when he said that this was a life and death matter and that the government should take responsibility for it.