Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the question. When it comes to the issue of the lawsuit between MDS and the government, I really don't think I can comment on that, since it is subject to a judicial procedure. Certainly there has been a large investment in MAPLE. I would point out that initially i

Natural Resources committee  I can't imagine that anybody, particularly the two major suppliers, would intentionally short Canada. I think it's just that the structures of the health care systems are very different. The U.S. structure relies upon a much more integrated supply chain stream than Canada does. W

Natural Resources committee  I'm going to ask Ms. Chitra to answer. She is our vice-president of technology, an expert on that matter.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's really been a function of the role that Canada has played globally, because we've not been a small player, we've been a big player. As a result of simply the amount of isotopes that Canada has provided, which has ranged over the years from somewhere between 50% and 3

Natural Resources committee  It seems to be that way. I can't give you a specific cause and effect, but clearly Europe looks after Europe, I think. It makes its own isotopes, and Europe looks after Europe. We see that at the European meetings. In North America what happens is you have different supply chain

Natural Resources committee  I think the committee knows I'm a little biased on this issue. We do believe that the MAPLE completion is the best option for Canada and, frankly, for the world. There have been a number of submissions to the blue-ribbon panel. I don't know exactly how many--in fact, that would

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Steve West, Chief Operating Officer of MDS Inc. and President of MDS Nordion. Accompanying me is Jill Chitra, Vice-President of Strategic Technologies for MDS Nordion. Today, I would like to focus my remarks on the current status of the me

Natural Resources committee  Therefore, what about having half a MAPLE reactor running at half power? Has that been examined? We would like a panel of experts to look at all of those options, to say “Maybe we should run these reactors at 50% capacity, and that will at least replace NRU until we find a techni

Natural Resources committee  Actually, we've always been in contact with all of the providers and have worked with them. We are actually part of that group that provides that information through the AIPES organization. So we do provide that information. We're not looking for confrontation; we're looking for

Natural Resources committee  I stand by my statement. We believed AECL was going to complete the reactor. They told us they were going to do it. We expected AECL to meet its contractual obligations. We are also urging the government to reconsider the project, because we believe there are ways to complete th

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Yes, if you recall what I said last time, it was that we were surprised that the MAPLE project was cancelled, because AECL had never indicated to us that they would be unable to complete the project. My opening comments--

Natural Resources committee  Sir, we were very clearly informed by AECL that they would meet their contractual obligations to bring the MAPLEs online. The original target date was October 2008. We expected them to complete the project and meet their contractual obligations.

Natural Resources committee  I think fixing NRU is essential. I don't think it's the final solution, but it's essential in the short to medium term. If you look at all the options, bearing in mind the time it takes to bring on new infrastructure to create medical isotopes, the best option is to complete the

Natural Resources committee  We currently do not have any isotopes that we can process. NRU supplies 30% to 40% of world demand. There are four other reactors, and they don't necessarily operate all at the same time. For example, the Petten reactor, which has this water leak, will be down for the month of Ju

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. We also share the same opinion as Mr. Duguay that the fission project has a good potential outcome to it. In fact, we ourselves are partnering with TRIUMF on that project. When the government and AECL announced the cancellation of the MAPLE project, clearly we had to