Minister's approach made Chalk River worseOTTAWA -The characteristic sound of a Stephane Dion press conference is the Liberal leader barking up the wrong tree. But he had a point this week when he called for Gary Lunn's head.
The Minister of Natural Resources is in deep ordure over the shutdown of a nuclear reactor at the Chalk River facility, operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., that supplies much of the world's medical isotopes.
The Conservative government has laid the blame for the crisis at the feet of Linda Keen, president of AECL's regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday she was guilty of "needlessly endangering" the lives of Canadians by not allowing the reactor to reopen. In a letter to Ms. Keen, Mr. Lunn asked her to provide him with reasons why she shouldn't be fired.
Ms. Keen, in a lengthy response to Mr. Lunn's letter, revealed the Minister has been generous in sharing the blame around -- in a teleconference last month, he also castigated AECL, saying it had "dropped the ball."
But an audit of AECL's operations by the Auditor-General, released by the nuclear operator late on Wednesday, suggests that Mr. Lunn was well aware of problems at Chalk River, including technical compliance concerns on the part of the CNSC. In this light, if anyone should be fired, perhaps it should be him.
Reading the Auditor's report in conjunction with Ms. Keen's timeline, it suggests a Minister with an attention deficit when it came to the nuclear industry...
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=230869