A Manufactured Fiasco

As we all know, a mini-crisis erupted in Ottawa last December when the crown corporation AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada) was forced by the Nuclear Safety Commission to shut down a plant in Chalk River, Ontario, that produced more than half of the world’s medical isotopes. Despite the drastic repercussions on world health, Linda Keen, the head of the nuclear watchdog, had ruled that the reactor posed too much of a risk to the community to be allowed to stay in operation.

While the government initially took some heat for its decidedly slow response to the crisis –especially after it was revealed that it had known about the situation for four months-, it managed to bury the issue pretty quickly by calling an emergency sitting which saw parliament overrule the nuclear watchdog’s decision and order AECL to resume isotope production. Canadians’ approved, they forgave the government for its slow response, and broke off for the Christmas holidays.

In most governments, this would have been the end. “Crisis avoided, we acted, now forget about it” would have said Jean Chrétien.

But for some reason, the Conservatives got another idea. Last week, after Christmas, the Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn in charge of the reactor file wrote a scathing open letter the head of the nuclear watchdog Linda Keen, basically telling her to get in line with the government’s position or face demotion.

It was, to say the least, bizarre. There was no clear purpose to the letter, no new decision relevant to the file, just some menaces and allegations. It was as if Gary Lunn was taunting Linda Keen into dropping the gloves.

And drop the gloves, Linda Keen did. In an open response to Gary Lunn’s letter, she clearly informed him that she was doing her job as required under the law and that she would not hesitate to pursue legal action if the government interfered in the work of the independent nuclear watchdog. Ouch!

So what does Minister Lunn do? Play down the confrontation, put the issue behind him? No, he waits until the eve of Linda Keen’s scheduled testimony for a parliamentary committee and fires her in the middle of the night. Just like that, bam!

But I mean, seriously, why bother? The issue was off the radar screen, Keen was largely silenced, and the public supported the governments handling of the issue. Why waste any energy going after Keen? And even if it was that important to give her the boot, could they have found a better time than the eve of her scheduled testimony before a committee. After parliament voted the reopening of the reactor in December, for example, Lunn could easily have argued that this put Keen in a position of non-confidence. Or on Christmas Day, he could have gotten rid of her without anyone knowing. It would have been, as they say in French, ni vu ni connu.

Why such a politically astute government chose to artificially create such a controversy is difficult to understand. Not only are they firing an esteemed public servant in after having handed her all sorts of abuse, but they are firing a woman when the polls clearly show that they are suffering from an extremely low level of support among women all across the country. Strategically, it makes no sense.

Daniel Lessard, the esteemed Radio-Canada journalist, said that the dismissal of Linda Keen was a message to all civil servants: get in line or face the sack. In his words “If I were a civil servant at a very high level –head of a board, of a crown corporation- I’d be very nervous and I would try to please that government as much as I can.”

We should of course be wary of making too many alarmist predictions about the future, but considering Harper’s well known distrust of the civil service which he views as too Liberal, Mr. Lessard may well be right.