Flaherty insists once normal growth resumes, tax revenues will naturally rise even as the extra spending required during a recession eases and that will let the government of the day balance the budget without tax increases or spending cuts. The government predicts a balanced budget by the end of 2014, a forecast Flaherty stuck to Tuesday. The Liberals say he's dreaming.

The chief executive officer of Nortel Networks Corp., has been summoned to appear before a House of Commons committee Thursday to explain how he and other senior managers qualified for millions of dollars in bonus payments as pensioners and employees were having their benefits cut or delayed while the company restructures under bankruptcy protection.

But Christopher Heysel said a speedy transformation of the McMaster reactor from a multi-purpose research machine to a high-volume isotope producer needs co-operation of other "stakeholders," including Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the federal government and the nuclear safety regulator. The transformation would be relatively cheap as well, just $30 million over five years, Heysel said.