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OTTAWA — Health Minister Tony Clement yesterday refused to apologize for the government's partisan attack on the career civil servant who headed the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, insisting it was a pre-emptive strike needed to justify emergency legislation to restart the shuttered Chalk River nuclear reactor.
In an interview on CTV's Question Period, Mr. Clement was asked to explain why the government, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, launched a personal attack on Linda Keen, the commission chair, alleging she was a Liberal appointee who was putting lives in danger by not permitting the restart of the reactor, the world's leading supplier of medical isotopes.
"At the time, we had some concerns that perhaps the Liberal opposition was toying with the idea of making this a partisan activity," Mr. Clement said. "We were concerned that we would not be able to get the legislation through in order to start up the reactor on time to deliver the isotopes."
"In politics . . . sometimes you've got to fire a couple of shots across the bow to make sure the opposition knows that you're serious about the issue," he continued.
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The half-century-old facility at Chalk River returned to service early yesterday morning and its operator, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. said it anticipates removing medical isotopes for processing and distribution within four days.
The nuclear safety commission had ordered the Chalk River reactor shut after it discovered that the facility had been operated for 17 months without installing safety equipment ordered by the commission. Parliament last week passed emergency legislation overriding the regulator and ordering the reactor to resume production.
Mr. Clement told CTV that Mr. Harper and the government had been "frustrated" by the dispute between AECL and the regulator. He also expressed irritation with the fact that he and his department had not been informed of the threat to the isotope supply.
"There should have been a protocol in place," he said. "I don't think there's any question that Health Canada and the Health Minister should have been informed," Mr. Clement said.
Ralph Goodale, the Liberal House leader, called the Tory attack on Ms. Keen "the grossest example of abusive dishonesty that this government has trotted out so far."
Mr. Goodale said Mr. Harper and other ministers decided to attack Ms. Keen and the regulatory agency to cover up their own "screw-up" at AECL, by leaving the Crown corporation without a CEO since Nov. 1 and by allowing AECL to continue operating the Chalk River reactor in violation of its operating licence.
The AECL's last president and chief executive, Robert Van Adel, retired on Nov. 1. (The acting chief executive after Mr. Van Adel's departure was Ken Petrunik, executive vice president and chief operating officer and president of the CANDU Reactor Division, according to a spokesman for Mr. Clement.)
The debacle claimed its first victim on Friday when Michael C. Burns, the part-time chairman of AECL and a one-time Alliance Party fundraiser, resigned suddenly and was replaced by Glenna Carr, a former high-ranking Ontario civil servant.
Asked to explain Mr. Burns' departure, a little over a year after he was appointed by the Harper government, Mr. Clement said that Mr. Burns discovered it was "rather difficult" to be a part-time chairman of an organization when "you only have an acting CEO."
The vacuum at the top was evident when company executives were asked to appear before the Commons last week during discussion of the emergency legislation.
"When we asked to have senior executives officers from AECL to come before the House, I expected to see the president and CEO," said Mr. Goodale. "Instead, the second and third in command turned up."
Mr. Goodale, who was Liberal natural resources minister when Ms. Keen was the deputy minister, insisted "there is not a partisan bone in Linda Keen's body."
Ironically, while Mr. Harper was denouncing Ms. Keen and the Nuclear Safety Commission for partisanship, he was busy adding a Conservative to the ranks of the commission.