How long does that triage list last, if we're hearing that Chalk River and the other supplies will not come on for a number of months and other supply sources may be some years? Triage only works in moments of emergency, and you apply the patches where you can to hold the fort. I look at the diagnoses that are specific to the types of isotopes we've now lost, in terms of diagnosing new cases of breast cancer, bone scans, newly diagnosed cancer patients with immediate treatment decisions.
In 2007, the minister said this was a life and death situation. We advance two years later, approximately, and we see a patchwork quilt of things to have Canadians rest assured. We also have studies in hand that there is a concern around false-positive images that are created when using thallium instead of the isotopes we currently use. If these other replacements were so fantastic and the supply of the other isotopes coming from Chalk River was so sketchy, then certainly hospitals and doctors wouldn't be using isotopes that normally come out of Chalk River; they would have used these diverse supplies.
What confuses me in this is that AECL, at the origin, was the supplier and distributor of these. The Government of Canada sells off the purchasing component to MDS Nordion, then gets sued for $25 million—successfully sued, I might add—for having hived off and then privatized this, then shutting down the MAPLE supply of reactors. Canadians are told 18 months ago it's a life and death situation, we have to override safety concerns at the nuclear facility in Chalk River. Eighteen months later, we're seeing proposed alternatives. We have a number of doctors saying that won't cut it.