Natural Resource Minister Gary Lunn told reporters following the question period that the government accepted the move and that it was a sound "business decision."

"That project has been plagued with problems from its inception," he said, explaining that a series of tests had been conducted in recent weeks to determine if there were solutions to "serious technical issues," that arose during the project.

"All the results came back negative - that there was no solution," he said. Lunn said the project was eight years behind schedule and, "hundreds of millions of dollars over budget."

The decision to terminate the project would allow AECL to concentrate on its core business of building power reactors, he said, adding that AECL has an impressive record of building safe reactors, on time and under budget.

When asked why AECL had been able to successfully complete a MAPLE reactor in Korea that produces medical isotopes, Lunn responded that the facility was a research reactor that serves a variety of purposes and was three times the size of the small, 10-megawatt reactors being constructed in Chalk River.

"The government of the day in the mid 90s was warned that this was a high-risk project," he said.

A federal government news release said the project had long been crippled by both technical and regulatory impediments, which remain unresolved.

Among the problems cited in the release were, "Regulatory challenges and commercial disputes which so far have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in private and public funds; technical malfunctions that could not be resolved; and reviews conducted by the Auditor General which revealed significant concerns about the costs, the delays, and the technical issues."

Lunn said that even if there were a solution to the technical problems, the reactors would not be completed for another 5-10 years.

Lunn said the termination of the project would not affect the current or future supply of medical isotopes, adding that the reactor currently producing them is operating "more safely than ever."

By Sean McKibbon, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , edited by Cristina Markham, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it