Ms. Keen, Not So Keen.

Okay, big day on Parliament Hill, a firing, a committee tries to brings a Minister to task, and a fight out in the lobby between Lunn and Keen. Okay, I made that last one up, but it would have been interesting.

My question? Why is Keen all of a sudden a victim? Read the Globe and Mail/CTV comments on this article, and we are now going to have a nuclear accident because a back-up of a back-up wasn't installed. It's also, ALL THE FAULT OF THE CONSERVATIVES!! Yup, they should have known something was wrong. Ms. Keen was just doing her job, she is superwoman, very competent, blah, blah. Okay, so what did she DO about this little gem?

A letter, written in 2001, to her.

Dear Ms. Keen:

The undersigned groups call on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to suspend the Parallex mixed oxide (MOX) plutonium fuel qualification tests scheduled to begin this month at the Atomic Energy of Canadas (AECL) Chalk River Nuclear Laboratorys National Research Universal reactor (NRU). We call for this suspension because serious concerns have recently surfaced about potential problems with quality assurance of the plutonium fuel pellets to be tested in the NRU

The CNSC must take action immediately because the test-burn of MOX fuel pellets containing both U.S. and Russian weapons-grade plutonium is scheduled to begin soon.

cc: The Honourable Jean Chrtien, Prime Minister of Canada
cc: Ralph Goodale, Minister of Natural Resources
cc: Stockwell Day, Leader of Canadian Alliance Party
cc: Gilles Duceppe, Chef du parti Bloc Qubecois
cc: Alexa McDonough, Leader of New Democratic Party
cc: Joe Clark,Leader of Progressive Conservative Party
cc: Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
cc: Laura Holgate, DOE Office of Fissile Materials Disposition

The problem for me is that most of that letter is like a foreign language, but I do understand perfectly the sense of urgency in the letter. The date is the important point, January 23, 2001, the leader of the opposition was Stockwell Day, the PM was Chretien, and looky, looky who was the Minister of Natural Resources, none other than Ralph Goodale. Things that make me go HUMMMM!

I don't know how that issue was resolved, but it is clear that problems have existed for years. I would like the committee to ask Ms. Keen if she has had any recent conversations with Goodale or any other Liberals, kind of like the Liberals were asking Mulroney about any recent conversations with Conservatives, even though Mulroney is not a sitting MP. Fair is fair.

Should she have been demoted? I'm not sure given the information we have, but I suspect the government has something on her that is pretty damaging, just like Sheila Fraser had something on the old environment auditor (She has not filed a wrongful dismissal suit). We will see what happens with Ms. Keen. How Keen will she be to sue? Seems not very, as she refused to appear at the committee hearing today.

What I'm absolutely appalled at is the opposition or their supporters, who voted to start the reactor back up, now using FEAR about a nuclear accident to scare up votes. Again, the kids need a time out, let the adults make the decisions.