An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the process to look at regulatory standards involves an order in council and it involves Parliament. Any regulatory regulations that are passed require the agreement of Parliament on that basis. In terms of regulatory standards for new reactors, we are now in the process of looking at these.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, I think Mr. McGee has talked about changes that he has put in, in terms of a safety culture, which is an important part. I come from the mining industry and it s very important for mining too. Mr. McGee has talked about what he has been doing. I think it is fair to say that assessments of AECL some years ago showed that there was perhaps not the same standard of concern about a safety culture, et cetera.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, I am a material scientist, just like the people who are at this table are engineers and scientists. I am not a lawyer and so I would not be able to comment on that.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, first I would like to make it clear that the CNSC did not receive a copy of that legal opinion. We received a draft copy of the legislation. In terms of the legal opinion, that would be a great reassurance to the commission if that were correct, which we assume it would be from justice, and that would stand the test.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  First of all, Mr. Chair, this is not bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. It is the law. If the commission goes outside its mandate, we will be taken to Federal Court for exceeding our mandate. We are concerned about Canadians in the isotope field. We did not have an application or any reason; we did not have a regulatory licence in front of us.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, as I mentioned earlier, the Nuclear Safety and Control Act was passed by Parliament in 2000. It specifically restricted the involvement of the commission to health and safety. This is the international standard. We talked earlier about what is happening around the world, and an economic regulator mixed with a safety regulator is not considered to be the safe way to regulate nuclear areas.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the commission and I as president have respect for Parliament. Parliament has provided the act that we put forward. We did receive yesterday a directive to the commission under section 19, which specifically says that we should take into account the health of Canadians.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, I and the commission and the commission staff will continue to operate within the law. The law is that we regulate for health, safety and, since 9/11, security of the establishment and the protection of the environment. This is not in the current mandate and we follow the law.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, certainly that is not correct if that is the impression I left. I said that the CNSC was working 24/7 to discuss this case. We had staff on the site repeatedly all weekend, looking at this case. We are moving expeditiously. A normal tribunal, to allow people to come and participate, intervenors from the communities, et cetera, would require 60 days to ensure people had an opportunity to look at the materials and plan to come.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the commission does understand the need for radioisotopes. Because we regulate all the hospitals and clinics, we are involved with them on a daily basis as well. However, the mandate of the commission is very clear, and that was given to us by Parliament. Parliament gave us the mandate in the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, Mr. Howden did give an estimate, assuming the safety case is well done. We have not received the safety case, but assuming the safety case is complete we are looking at a matter of three days as Mr. Howden said. The commission would take a day, so that is four days.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the CNSC is an independent agent. It reports through the Minister of Natural Resources, not to the Minister of Natural Resources, so the minister is not involved in the decisions of the commission day to day. It does, like other administrative tribunals, which are a form of justice, publish its findings.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, I would like to clarify a misconception that has been repeated several times today. The CNSC did not shut down AECL. AECL was in a planned shutdown, as Mr. McGee said, and voluntarily decided to continue the shutdown in order to put the pumps into place. CNSC did not shut down this reactor.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, as we outlined earlier, the commission was promised by AECL that it would have the two pumps as late as December 6, that it believed that was the safety case, so the commission would look forward to an amendment that would allow for this one pump to be there, and the commission is ready to review that.

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, what we are talking about is the date the licence amendment would be given. At that point, AECL would then return to start the reactor up. It is AECL's responsibility once it gets the licence amendment. If it were allowed now to have one pump under the current licence, we would not need a licence amendment.