Mr. Speaker, as the ongoing issues at Chalk River give us reason to worry about the future of the medical isotope supply, researchers at the Étienne-Le Bel Clinical Research Centre at CHUS and the Université de Sherbrooke's faculty of medicine have shown that technetium-99m can be produced using a cyclotron, which does not require highly enriched uranium and does not produce radioactive waste. Creating a decentralized cyclotron network would secure our supply of technetium. The Étienne-Le Bel Centre is already involved in building a new cyclotron, and the cost of setting up a pilot site in Sherbrooke will be just a fraction of that associated with nuclear reactors.
Not only are researchers at the Étienne-Le Bel Centre pioneers in this field, but they are also offering the government a solution on a silver platter. I support the Étienne-Le Bel Centre's proposal, and I hope that the government will be smart enough to do so too.