Natural Resources committee  It's $9 billion. It's the individual operators, $300 million, plus the benefit of the industry pool, which, when accumulated, brings the total available compensation to roughly $9 billion.

Natural Resources committee  That's right. The cap would go up, and when reactors are taken out of service, the cap would go down.

Natural Resources committee  In our discussions, the insurers have not expressed that our $650 million proposal is out of line today and that they would be able to provide that capacity to us.

Natural Resources committee  I don't know.... I think that's arguable. They indicated to us at the outset that roughly $850 million was available. I know a number of European countries now seeking to insure over $1 billion of private insurance are finding it very difficult to do so. In fact, they aren't able

Natural Resources committee  The United States liability amount is made up of two tiers. The first tier is the insurance tier, under which operators are required to carry...I believe it's roughly $300 million Canadian, so an insurance tier similar to the $650 million we would require. It's roughly $300 milli

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I would say that's accurate. Each individual operator has a fixed amount that they are responsible to secure financially. That amount is based on insurance and an additional tier for their individual reactor.

Natural Resources committee  I believe it was last summer. It was first introduced as Bill C-63, I believe, in June, and it has been reintroduced as Bill C-5.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly. The $650 million was based on a number of factors. You mentioned “international experience”, and we looked at the current amounts in the international conventions that govern this area, notably the Paris Convention and the Vienna Convention. Both of those conventions r

Natural Resources committee  If there was damage to property, certainly, that damage would be compensated for. We're talking about damage to the environment here, for example, perhaps to provincial or national parks, and so on. Our view was that it would be left to a competent authority to determine the exte

Natural Resources committee  That's correct.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. The concern about leaving the clause open-ended was that some could put forward any kind of proposal to remediate environmental damage when perhaps it was a question of degrees and might be something that a competent authority, such as a ministry of the environment, the Cana

Natural Resources committee  Our view is that there really is not much difference between the use of the term “may” or “shall” in the clause.

Natural Resources committee  I think certainly, as I mentioned, the consideration of whether it would be worthwhile for us to have other reciprocity agreements or agreements of that nature is something that we would be looking at, following our consideration of this new legislation. It's our intent to look a

Natural Resources committee  I think we are more concerned with getting our own legislation in place, getting the appropriate insurance and compensation regime in place domestically, and ensuring that potential Canadian victims, in the unlikely event of an incident, were addressed, or anyone in Canada. Act

Natural Resources committee  We acknowledge that it exists. I would suggest that perhaps we would use this bill as the basis for looking at our relations with other countries in terms of liability, but we understood as we are developing this legislation that the reciprocity agreement exists today and is stil