Statement made on 23 June 2009 by Senator Joan Fraser
Hon. Joan Fraser:
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. This month, the Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Lisa Raitt, told members in the other place, numerous times, that the MAPLE reactors had never produced a single medical isotope. On June 15, the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, went further. He said that there was "no prospect in sight of the production of a single medical isotope."
We now know that that statement was — how shall I put it? — at best a half-truth. The MAPLE reactors, MAPLE-1 in particular, had completed, repeatedly as I understand it, all that the reactors could be expected to complete in the production of medical isotopes. They had produced molybdenum-99, but it was not processed into the medical isotopes. We also know that the engineering team was within four months of correcting the technical problem that had prevented the licensing of the reactors.
Why did the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources not tell Canadians the whole truth?
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