I am frankly sick and tired of our Conservative government blaming everything on the previous Liberal government. Sure, some leeway could be allowed after they were elected in January ’06, but how long do they have to be there before blaming their predecessors doesn’t make sense? For my money, they’re already past that point.
But this is just what Harper and crew tried to do the other week (and continue to do) with the AECL / CNSC fiasco, by blaming the “Liberal appointed Nuclear Safety Commission.” What a cop out. For Harper to stand in the House of Commons and assure everyone, with his vast expertise in nuclear safety, that no accident will happen if the reactor is restarted, seems to me to be the ultimate in arrogance. I certainly hope he guessed right.
Before the comments start coming, I know the Conservatives got some advice from somewhere and I have read persuasive arguments about why restarting may not have been a huge risk, from a pure risk point of view, but this totally discounts the cost of being wrong and most importantly, it is beside the point.
The point is, we have a Nuclear Safety Commission whose purpose in life is to ensure the safe operation of nuclear facilities in Canada. The head of the commission may have been appointed by a Liberal government, but the role of the commission is decidedly non-political.
I believe that the government’s handling of this entire affair has caused serious injury to the credibility of the CNSC and their ability to carry out their duties in the future. Any operator of nuclear facilities, if they disagree with their regulator, will now have an expectation that an appeal to the politicians will make their problem go away.
To add insult to injury, Health Minister Tony Clement, with his vast experience in nuclear safety, is further undermining the CNSC by claiming that the commission got it wrong.
“The regulator got it wrong in assessing the risks associated with keeping the reactor running versus the risks associated with not having isotopes for cancer patients and heart patients. They opted to keep the reactor closed and our (parliament’s) point of view is that that was the wrong decision,” he told the Forester.
What’s that you say? He’s right? The extremely low risk to health by risking operation is outweighed by certain risks to cancer patients in dire need of diagnostic treatment?
Perhaps, but again this is beside the point.
I think it’s fair to say that the role of the CNSC, which stands for Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, is to regulate the operation of nuclear facilities in Canada to ensure that accidents DO NOT HAPPEN. It is NOT to weigh risks of nuclear accidents against any other criteria.
Is it politicians responsibility to weigh these risks against each other? I would say that it was. That risk is weighed during the decision to have a nuclear reactor in the first place. And then that risk is mitigated by establishing something like, say, a Nuclear Safety Commission.
Not to just be an armchair quarterback, what should the government have done? Perhaps they should have started by talking to the CNSC and seeing if there was any other way to do this that would not undermine their authority. Perhaps the quickie legislation that was passed should have been address to the CNSC and given them some discretion in dealing with AECL, instead of leaving their only recourse toward a non-compliant operator to order a reactor shutdown.
But that would require listening to a Liberal appointed commission, and we can’t have that.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Quite frankly there should of been a mitigation plan years ago in case something like this happened. I cringe at the overall incompetence of our political leaders. They should of at least had a backup source where these isotopes could have been produced – even in another country.
Agreed. –Glenn
Well, there were backup sources in other countries. The problem is that they all decided to go down for maintenance at the same time. It’s a weird coincidence.
This was all just a contrived scenerio in an attempt to show mismanagement and justify privatization.
Mind you there certainly has been mismanagement considering the poor design of the new Maple reactors and the massive cost over runs,
Whooee! What should they have done? They should have used the mitigation plan that was drawn up years ago — in 1996. That’s right. They had a plan for alternate suppliers to meet MDS’s demand.
In 1997-8, the plan was implemented to allay shortages during a labour dispute that shut down Chalk River. The plan was proven to work in a real-life situation.
The only reason this became a crisis is because MDS Nordion failed to procure alternate supplies. The crisis was entirely avoidable and manufactured.
When Harper rushed legislation through a panicked Parliament, he failed to inform the ignoramus MP’s that there was an option that did not require a potentially unsafe restart of NRU.
MDS’s profit margin would suffer if it was forced to go to its Belgian subsidiary (IRE) for isotopes. They simply allowed the shortage to happen and called on their salesman in Parliament to restore their profitable source of isotopes.
Harper wants to sell AECL. He is ideologically opposed to crown corporations. That is the underlying factor that is affecting everything about this scandal.
JB
JimBobby,
If MDS failed to procure supplies, then there is no guarantee they would procure it immediately even if they were forced to. I assume they would be put on a waiting list.