Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing today.
I have a lot of questions based on your testimony, based on things that I've also done some investigation on myself, and based on the notes from Minister Lunn that we received in a previous meeting.
I will set the tone here. On November 30, Natural Resources Canada received details from AECL on the implications of a prolonged shutdown on isotope supply. They were already being made aware on November 30 that there was going to be a prolonged shutdown. I'm just curious to know why it took until December 5 for you to get that information. That was another five days that we could have had to make sure that the supply was brought up to capacity.
I read from your documents that you are changing your reporting mechanisms. I think that's very important, because those were the first questions I had when this all came about. Why did it get to this point, and why did it take so long for ministers to be informed? Where did it all break down? Obviously some reporting mechanisms were not in place or people were not doing their jobs.
I find that quite disturbing, because this is such an important issue, and it put parliamentarians in a very disturbing position at the time to make the decision. And of course we made that decision, in all good conscience, on the health and safety of Canadians, and for all the right reasons. But again it goes back to how we got there in the first place.