David Anderson

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

I believe you were given that mandate this morning. Therefore, I do not think you can say that you do not have a mandate in that area. I think you need to consider it seriously.

I want to thank all the witnesses for making the effort to be here tonight. I know some people had to come a long distance.

However, I would like to go back to our two witnesses who showed up recently.

I want them to reiterate their comfort level with the immediate resumption of the reactor. Could they tell us a bit more about whether they feel comfortable with the legislation passing and then the reactor being started up immediately.

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Ms. Keen, earlier you said that you did not have an economic mandate. I think that was part of the introduction of what you said. This morning you were asked to consider seriously the existing health and safety issues.

What have you done throughout the day to take those into consideration?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Ms. Keen, in your view, I want to know if the CNSC has done any reflection or study of the risk to human life in not restarting the reactor. Have you have done any work on that? What is the risk to human life and human of shutting off 70% of the world's medical isotopes for a month? Has that been any part of the considerations of your position in this issue?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I understand there is a sense of urgency here, and the witness is talking about that.

I have a bit of a concern. I have not heard that sense of urgency tonight from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. I listened to the opening comments and a response to the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore earlier in the evening, as well as the explanation of the requirements that AECL would have to fulfill. I also listened to the response to the member for Mississauga—Erindale's comments. I did not feel there was a sense of urgency on the side of the CNSC that this needed to be done immediately.

I guess I got the sense that the CNSC may be more interested in asserting authority rather than working in a really constructive and quick way with the other agency.

Could Ms. Keen comment on that, if she has a comment?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, it sounded to me tonight like there were some issues between the two agencies in terms of the safety case. AECL suggests that it has submitted one and the CNSC does not seem to find that adequate. It is suggesting that AECL should submit another one. I think that is basically what we are hearing.

If AECL submits the safety case and the CNSC has issues with the safety case, then what is the time length we could expect before it would likely be up and running? There is, I imagine, a span of time there, but what would be the earliest we would see it if some of those safety issues have to be dealt with?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I think we have agreement from all three parties at the table tonight that the situation with the NRU is it would in fact be as safe as or safer than it was prior to November 18 if it were allowed to resume production immediately.

I want to go back to the issue of how long it will take the NRU to get up and running. We seem to have some clear indication that if the bill is passed tonight, there is the opportunity to have the production of isotopes resumed within about a week. Seven or eight days I think is what we were talking about.

Could AECL tell us how long it thinks it would take to get the reactor running without the act? Then I will have a further question on that, as well. Is it approximately two weeks?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Howden, I wanted to ask you a question tonight and I will hold you to a yes or no answer here.

Would you agree if we resumed operation tomorrow of the NRU, that it would be as safe as it was prior to November 18?

[An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River, December 11th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I rise on a point of order. We were planning on splitting our time, so perhaps I could go first for the first 10 minutes, which will allow the parliamentary secretary some time to sort his issues.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to a couple of things that the member said. He talked about ideologically driven parties. I think there is none more so than the NDP and particularly its unbalanced fiscal policies.

We have seen what happens when the NDP comes to power. We have seen what happened in Ontario. We have a former NDP premier who virtually destroyed his province and then wanted to be the federal leader of the Liberal Party. We had an example in British Columbia where the NDP came to power and left that province struggling for years.

There is no better example than my home province of Saskatchewan. The question is often asked as to whether the NDP's fiscal policies have permanently damaged the province's ability to be what it should be.

Those of us in the federal Conservative Party take a much different approach and a much more positive approach than our NDP friends in the House here.

I believe the member was mentioning some of the tax cuts. I want to talk about some of the legislation that we have brought in and get his response.

We are all familiar with the income tax cuts that we brought in and the fact that those cuts will make a difference for every taxpaying Canadian. Everyone knows that we kept our promise on the GST by reducing it by 2%. We have reduced corporate taxes, which the NDP opposed. We have brought in the child tax benefit to benefit children across this country. We brought in a tax credit for working folks, which gives them an opportunity to benefit from the changes we have made. We have brought in capital gains exemptions. We have brought in an accelerated depreciation, which benefits our manufacturing sector.

Rather than the very narrow and limited financial ideology that the NDP has, we have one that actually reaches out to all Canadians. It reaches across the board and gives everyone a break from the overtaxation that was previously in place because of the Liberal government.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.