Natural Resources committee  Under the existing legislation, the Nuclear Liability Act, in the case of certain multiple reactor facilities, those multiple reactor facilities are designated as a single installation because they all make use of one vacuum building, so they operate as an entire station. And in

Natural Resources committee  I don't know.

Natural Resources committee  If an incident happened, and the $650 million amount were exceeded, the government would set up a tribunal to determine compensation. However, the government would also have to report to Parliament which would decide if additional funds were needed to compensate the victims.

Natural Resources committee  No, the tribunal comes into force only in the event of a serious accident if it's considered to be in the public interest to establish the tribunal. In the situation described in clause 22, when it would be the minister making a decision on whether to recommend that the liability

Natural Resources committee  It would be the same as an incident anywhere in Canada, whether it was in a factory near Toronto, or in Alberta in a ...

Natural Resources committee  All the victims. But the specific facility, the power station, for example, is not covered. The costs of damages would not be covered.

Natural Resources committee  In Germany, the first tier is covered by traditional insurance, and then in the second tier, you're correct, they have this unlimited liability. It's basically based on the assets of the operator. These are very large energy companies, and the scheme is that in the event of an in

Natural Resources committee  Exactly, yes.

Natural Resources committee  That's right. There are international conventions to which the European countries belong, and to get into the conventions they have to have domestic coverage of at least $500 million Canadian—roughly, as an estimate

Natural Resources committee  No. In my opinion, it is because the insurers do not have the capacity to write a policy for two billion dollars. It is not a matter of risk. The insurance companies do not want to put all their capacity in the nuclear industry. That capacity is not unlimited, so they decide to u

Natural Resources committee  It is difficult to comment on that. My comments about the CANDU were based on a 1990 study done by Mr. Kenneth Hare. That study dealt with regulatory mechanisms in Chernobyl that were not the same as those in Canada. A similar accident could not happen in Canada. We would have to

Natural Resources committee  On the first issue, our view is that we were looking at foreseeable incidents. In establishing the $650 million limit we weren't looking at a catastrophic loss because we did not believe that would be an appropriate parameter to determine an operator's insurance, the worst-case c

Natural Resources committee  The amount of insurance in European countries today is 300 million SDRs, or about $500 million Canadian dollars. Countries now want to increase that to a billion dollars, but it is not possible. They are looking for other ways to get the financial security. They cannot ratify con

Natural Resources committee  I would say catastrophic losses are not. They're all addressed by this bill, but if one could contemplate that there could be a catastrophic loss, then we would be moving into the second part of the bill, the tribunal. There would have to be a determination of what the total cost

Natural Resources committee  All of the developed countries would use a similar definition of nuclear damage. For some time it was static, and they were looking at property damage and injury, but since 1997 there's been an evolution. Now countries are moving to a more comprehensive list of damages.