Isotopes, Cancer, Nuclear Risk: Sexy to Tories
Here’s a difficult one. If faced with two options, one implying that patients worldwide cannot undergo certain modern tests and treatments because there is a shortage of medical isotopes, the other that the plant producing these isotopes is a safety risk because it needs certain upgrades or repairs, which option do you choose? Neither is ideal.
The Chalk River reactor/medical isotope problem put the Conservatives in a particularly difficult quandary. Although I think it would have been possible to find a more positive and dynamic solution than to simply choose option a over option b, that’s beside the point. This post is about how the Conservatives chose to deal with the situation rather than what the end result was.
The Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario is a research facility operating a reactor that produces much of the world’s supply of medical isotopes. It is supposed to be regulated by the independent Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which in 2007 found that the facility needed repairs. The Conservatives pushed through orders that overrode the CNSC’s shutdown of the facility, and the story behind that is what looks rather unseemly. The CBC1 reported on 13 December 2007
“The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) had ordered the 50-year-old Chalk River reactor closed because its emergency power system was not connected to the cooling pumps, as required to prevent overheating during a disaster such as an earthquake.
But the federal government bypassed the regulatory body’s order by fast-tracking an emergency bill allowing AECL to restart the reactor for 120 days.”
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post that was one solution, a debatable one, but the way they went about accomplishing it was not. They drafted emergency legislation and ousted the head of CNSC, Linda Keen. According to CTV News2 18 December 2007
“The Conservative government issued a cabinet order last week to federal nuclear regulators in an apparent effort to pressure them into letting medical isotope production resume at the Chalk River nuclear reactor.
But the directive, dated Dec. 10, failed to resolve a dispute between Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which operates the reactor, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which sets licensing, health and safety rules.
The government brought in emergency legislation the next day that made a temporary end run around the rules to enable isotope production to resume.”
The CBC article mentioned above also said
“…Earlier in the week, Keen told a committee of MPs the government removed the CNSC’s legal counsel so the agency could not dispute the legislation.”
Harper, as he frequently does, wasted no time making the controversy over a dangerously critical situation, political, suggesting the Liberals fought against the Conservatives’ actions because, Linda Keen, had originally been appointed by liberals. But she was just doing her job. Had the CNSC given the go ahead for the reactor to start up after its last maintenance, it would have been acting contrarily to its responsibilities. It wouldn’t have been ensuring that the proper safety was met. But then, Harper is notorious for ridding us of oversight committees and watchdogs. The political gaming was intensified through Conservative MP Lisa Raitt, but I’ll get to that.
Bolstering the public understanding of Keen’s job description is Thomas Walkom’s 17 January 2008 article3 in The Star explaining
“The government’s case, articulated by Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn at a Commons committee yesterday, is that it was Keen’s job to get Chalk River up and running. In fact, as the minister responsible for AECL, that task belonged to him. Her job under the law was to set and enforce nuclear safety standards – which she did… Certainly, Lunn’s arguments yesterday made little sense. He characterized AECL’s failure to meet the regulator’s safety standards as a “dispute” between two agencies – which is rather like suggesting that someone who breaks the law is having a “dispute” with the convicting judge.”
As promised, here is where things go downhill. Lunn got shuffled out of his job as Natural Resources Minister, and was replaced by Lisa Raitt. As reported by Canwest News Service4 (9 June 2009) Lisa Raitt, in conversation with an aide made some unfortunate remarks.
“‘…when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue.
‘It’s really clear,’ said Raitt. ‘Oh, Leona. I’m so disappointed.’
Later on the tape, the aide says the isotope issue is difficult to manage ‘because it’s confusing to a lot of people.’
‘But it’s sexy,’ Raitt responds. ‘Radioactive leaks. Cancer.’
‘Nuclear contamination,’ the aide says.”
Of course this was a private tape before released to the press. It’s arguable that some of what she said ought not to be taken too seriously, but rather as off-the-cuff remarks. Nevetheless it portrays the attitude that this Conservative representative has toward her responsibilities.
The issue revolves around a reactor, radioactivity, people’s health, our environment. It’s insufficient to reduce it to simply money. Raitt’s flippant remark about it being a sexy issue belies her greater interest in the shallow side of politicking than her deeper responsibility of serving the Canadian public. One would think her career would see better results if she undertook her job responsibilities more earnestly.
(Update: The Globe and Mail reported 19 January 2010 that in Harper’s latest cabinet reshuffling, “Lisa Raitt was downgraded to Labour from Natural Resources after a string of 2009 gaffes”)
