Ottawa fires nuclear safety commission head

CBC News

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Sep 26, 2006
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The federal government has fired the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, days after she publicly accused Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn of interfering with the independence of the arm's-length watchdog.
The former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Linda Keen, says she will appear at a parliamentary committee about the reactor closure on Wednesday.
(CBC)
"The president was aware of the importance of maintaining Canada's and the world's supply of medical isotopes," said the statement from Lunn's office.
"However, given the growing crisis, she did not demonstrate the leadership expected of the president under the existing legislative provisions of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to put the commission in a position to address the situation in a timely fashion."
Lunn and Keen have been at odds since the 50-year-old Chalk River nuclear reactor was shut down in November, prompting a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes. Parliament passed a measure requiring the facility to reopen in December.
In a Dec. 27 letter to Keen leaked to the Ottawa Citizen, Lunn questioned her judgment for recommending the reactor be shut down and informed her he was considering having her removed from the post.
Keen responded with an eight-page letter accusing Lunn of improper interference and threatening to fight in court any attempt to remove her from her job. She also said she had asked the privacy commissioner and the RCMP to investigate how Lunn's letter was leaked to the media.
The Conservative government has blamed the commission's intransigence for creating the crisis. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper pointed a finger directly at Keen, a career bureaucrat whom he referred to as a Liberal appointee.
Keen became head of the commission in 2001 and had been serving her second five-year term.
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Is the firing justifiable?


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