You can read between the lines, and you can read what Mr. Dhaliwal has said. I'll let the media and the public judge for themselves what he was saying.
The reality is that under the previous government, which began the project in 1996, up until they left office in 2005--despite numerous warnings from the Auditor General--the flags were there. This was a political decision. They elected not to make that decision. For whatever reason, they chose to ignore this and not make the decision.
I'll say that we've been in office for two years. Listen, when you're making nuclear decisions, there's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of due diligence. You know, you don't come into office and make a decision six months later. These are significant decisions. I think we've acted appropriately. Should a decision have been made a long time ago? I think these tests and this work could have been done a long time ago, and it would have saved a significant amount of money. The fact is that they weren't, but our government is prepared to take leadership and make the decisions we have made to terminate this project. We believe it's in the best interest of the taxpayer, AECL, and the medical community.
I'll just add something. Why is it in the best interest of AECL? As you know, we are having a nuclear renaissance. And I want to say this about AECL. They are in the business of building power reactors. Their reactors operate as some of the most efficient reactors anywhere in the world. Their performance on the international stage has been to build nuclear reactors on time and under budget. The men and women who work at AECL--the nuclear engineers, the nuclear scientists--are some of the best in the world. I think this decision also allows them to focus on what they do best, and that's building nuclear reactors to produce electricity.
The reality is that the world is changing. We're seeing opportunities both at home and abroad. That's another reason this decision is so important. They warned previous governments about the risk of this project. I think it's safe to say that this project should never have started. But we can allow them to get back to what they do well. That's an important part of this decision.