Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, gentlemen.
My question is for you, Mr. West. Reading through the timeline of the MAPLE reactor affair, at first glance, one could label the financial partnership with AECL as something of a fiasco. In fact, over the course of this affair, there have been several court cases, you have reopened and renegotiated agreements, and there has been litigation. From the outset, quite frankly, it made no sense.
Mr. Waddington told us in his testimony that in 2003, independent experts in nuclear technology wrote a fairly comprehensive report on the MAPLE reactor and came to the conclusion that they could not find a solution to resolve the reactors' problems. I think we have to give a lot of credence to the study. Despite that, you continued to have confidence in AECL, and you signed a new agreement in 2006 that included the parameters we saw earlier on.
Last February I attended a Canadian Nuclear Association forum, and already, the backroom chatter was that the MAPLE would never see the light of day. I am not an expert, but the fact that this reactor would never see the light of day seemed to be common knowledge. I am amazed that you are surprised since you signed an agreement in 2006 with the full knowledge that it was very unlikely that the MAPLE would see the light of day.
Can you tell me what motivated you, what your economic interest would be in signing such an agreement, an agreement that would almost certainly be challenged at some point in time?