Lisa Raitt

[Medical Isotopes, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in 2008, AECL made the decision to discontinue the MAPLE-1 and MAPLE-2 reactors, which were to supply medical isotopes to the world. It was after 12 years, over half a billion dollars, and not one single medical isotope produced.

As a result of that, the government instructed AECL to extend the licence of the NRU as best it could in order to continue to produce medical isotopes. Along with that, last week we struck an expert panel to review other options that may be made available. That is indeed what we are doing.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have indicated already that Canada has a leadership position with respect to the global supply. In fact, next week I will be chairing a panel at a conference in Toronto, which brings together, in one room, all the world leading producers of medical isotopes.

What is important is to show and indicate that we have close contact with the industry on this issue. Indeed, we can report from industry that next week more than 50% of normal supply will be available. We are going to keep in contact with the medical community and keep pushing out the information so Canadians know what is going on.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member indicated that there were not any outages and there were not any difficulties on the Liberals' watch. The reality is in 2003 they understood that the world's hope for medical isotopes, the MAPLEs 1 and 2, were not going to work. It was a case of either being ignorant of the situation or not caring themselves.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I can say that when the hon. member from Wascana actually was the minister of natural resources and knew in 2003 that the MAPLE reactors would not work, I wish he had asked as many questions then, because we would not be in the situation we are in now.

The reality is we are dealing with this in an open and a transparent way because in 2003, when the MAPLEs did not work, the Liberals hid the crisis.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in December of last year, we put out a five-point plan on how to deal with a shortage of medical isotopes.

In that plan are two key issues. One is dealing with contingencies, and the Minister of Health is ably dealing with that one. In the second case, it is increasing the global supply of medical isotopes.

Through our leadership, we have been able to have the Netherlands increase its production by 50%, have South Africa increase its production by 30%, and have Australia bring on its reactor earlier than anticipated.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, obviously it goes without saying, if any of us had the technical capabilities to fix the issue, we would do so.

The reality is that AECL has indeed given the update with respect to where it is in the repairs to the reactor, and it is progressing.

In terms of the question of money, it is this government that actually has the eye on the ball: the importance of the nuclear industry and the importance of medical isotopes to this country. We are the ones who have been fully funding AECL for the last three years. It is the Liberal opposition that starved AECL and starved Chalk River in the 10 years--

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, again, the facts are important in this situation. It is this Conservative government that has actually had its eye on the issue and has been working towards a solution since 2007. Indeed a difficult decision was taken to disband the MAPLEs project in 2008. However, we also sought to increase the licence extension to the NRU to deal with the issue.

Who did not deal with the issue? The Liberals did not deal with the issue, for 13 years.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that we cannot control when the NRU goes down. What we can do, though, is work the best we can to both increase medical supplies around the world and to mitigate the shortage in supplies.

However, I think it is really important to notice that Canada did lead the field in the 1990s with respect to developing the MAPLEs project. In 2000, the Liberal opposition was informed that the MAPLEs could not be commissioned and indeed, in 2003, the problem that caused us to agree to shutting it down was brought to the attention of the member for Wascana.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the reliability of the NRU in terms of producing medical isotopes, I can inform the House that the facts are that it has had over 90% reliability for a 50-year old reactor to produce the medical isotopes in the last year. It had been doing so at an increasingly larger rate last fall when we were supplying the world.

Now it is time for the world to help us. It is doing so. Australia is shortening its time for commissioning from approximately five months down to a few weeks, and indeed contrary to what has been said by the hon. member opposite, Australia's reactor can provide 20% of the global supply.

[Medical Isotopes, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as I just indicated to the House, indeed we do have an indication of what amount of isotopes will be available next week to the Canadian public. That is what is important to get into the hands of the medical establishment, so that it can utilize the contingency plans that have been worked on with the Minister of Health.

Indeed, we continue to work with the reactors and, in fact, upon Canada's leadership there is a high level meeting of nuclear energy agencies. That is exactly what is going to be discussed in terms of scheduling.