Natural Resources committee  It would happen through the regulation-making authority.

Natural Resources committee  In the regulation-making process, there is public consultation involved in the publishing of the draft regulations, if you will. That allows for comment. The government has to then formally comment on the comments that are provided, and then it's provided as a final draft and goes forward.

Natural Resources committee  I think I understand the spirit of the amendment. The spirit would be to remove the ability of the board to make the recommendation. However, this part of the bill provides the ability to make regulations that would set in clear terms what the elements of a recommendation to reduce absolute liability would be based on.

Natural Resources committee  Perhaps I could start. The amendment calls for the ability to create regulations that would allow for, I guess, determining the nature and approach to calculating non-use value. In the context of the policy direction of the bill, the policy direction of the bill indicates, of course, that non-use value will be recognized.

Natural Resources committee  Our read of this particular amendment would be that it removes “except in section 25.4” of the bill, which is a section that references the ability to conduct research on STAs, spill-treating agents, to demonstrate and to understand how they would be affected in the natural environment and how they work.

Natural Resources committee  She'll be here in a few minutes.

Natural Resources committee  I can't comment on the will of Parliament in the future except to say that the lead time to build a new reactor in Canada would be extensive. My colleagues in the regulatory community could probably tell you that they would do their very best to move it along as quickly as they could, but given the design and the development, we're talking about likely a decade or so.

Natural Resources committee  I appreciate the question, and certainly the polluter-pay principle exists in common law and it's resident, I think, in a number of different pieces of legislation. In the particular instance here, the context around polluter pays is one in which there seemed to be a limit to which the community could operate, and that limit is not constrained in a Canadian context but is a global issue.

Natural Resources committee  To the extent that the law provides, correct. Of course, I would again reinforce that ultimately the owners of the reactors in Canada, and the ownership of the reactors are taxpayers to put it as bluntly—

Natural Resources committee  They could, but I think it would be fair to say that the design and development and build of a nuclear facility 10 years from now would probably be starting the regulatory phase now.

Natural Resources committee  We have a private operator of a publicly owned facility, so certainly there's an operator who operates a publicly owned facility, and I grant your point that there could be the possibility of a privately owned and developed facility in Canada.

Natural Resources committee  Mostly. The United States has a limit to liability for each operator of about, I think, $375 million. If there is an incident that exceeds that amount, which is, if you will, the polluter pay cap in the United States of $375 million, then all of the other reactor owners contribute to a pooled fund that at this point would push about $12-plus billion.

Natural Resources committee  Correct.

Natural Resources committee  No. There's $1 billion that's required of operators. The regulation phase that follows passage of the bill will identify nuclear installations. There are different types. A reactor that generates electricity will be one type and there would be an expectation of $1 billion. There are research reactors in universities across the country that are quite small, that are quite different than, say, electricity generation.

Natural Resources committee  It would apply. So one part of the treaty is the quid pro quo, if you will.