The Canadian Nu-ku-leer games.

Im betting that many of you already know what a bunch of Republican wannabes we have in Canada as our minority government in our parliamentary system?

Many canucks have been posting here off and on for the last two years with some stories that sound most Un-Canadian. Now theres one that scares the pants off thinking Canadians.....(not the RWA crowd. They look "glowingly" forward to unregulated nuclear plants)
And since the center of this storm is not all that far from the border?There may be some concern for the US as well.

The Nuclear reactor at a place called Chalk River, provides electricity, and has been running for over 40 years. It also provides medical Isotopes for medical tests, treatments and research.

They're the backbone of nuclear medicine. Medical isotopes — tiny radioactive particles that can be injected into the body — have become the standard treatment for some cancers. They've also brought medical imaging to new levels.

And most of the world's supply is produced in Canada.

There is a nuclear watchdog in Canada called the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is an independent federal government agency that regulates the use of nuclear energy and material to protect health, safety, security and the environment and to respect Canada’s international commitments on the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

They are there to protect us, and are supposed to be independent of any interference. They are not supposed to be ordered around by the feds despite the connection in funding. This is nuclear fucking power, after all.

So what happened? The federal government decided to meddle.

The licence for the AECL reactor at Chalk River, 180 kilometres from Ottawa, was issued last year based on company assurances that the system (emergency power system connected to cooling pumps) had in fact been installed. The non-compliance was uncovered by safety regulators during an inspection last month when AECL took down the reactor for what was supposed to have been five days of routine maintenance.

"It was a surprise to us because our expectation was that it was in place and in service," Howden told The Canadian Press. "From a nuclear safety point of view, this is a very serious situation."

On Thursday, amid a deepening crisis facing medical facilities and patients across the continent, AECL told a commission tribunal that it hadn't realized the power-system upgrade was compulsory, but couldn't explain the oversight

Chalk River hasn't the greatest safety record BTW. AECL (The company that owns the reactors will tell you otherwise. Don't take that one to the bank.

The core of the NRX reactor could not be decontaminated; it had to be buried as radioactive waste. Young Jimmy Carter -- later U.S. President, then a nuclear engineer in the U.S. Navy -- was among the hundreds of Canadian and American servicemen who were ordered to participate in the NRX cleanup following the accident.

There are other ongoing concerns. Please be sure to read this one.

So what's happened?
The Harper Conservatives raised a howl that they said this reactor had been shut down due to the pure mean spiritedness of Linda Keen, the President of the Watchdog organization. They said she was an apointee by the previous governments, and that she was doing it to spite them.
And do keep in mind, that there are other facilities that could have picked up a lot of the slack. There are facilities in Belgium and South Africa for instance. There was advance warning, and it could have been done much better in the short term. The Conservatives plan was already made however, and it looks like it was also well in advance.

The press was alerted, who of course decided to try to panic the populace. An emergency vote was called in the Parliament, and the the reactor was reopened.
Apparently everyone missed it when Harper and his Caucus became nuclear fucking scientists. Does one learn that stuff when going after an Economists degree?
They insisted that the aging reactor, without the safety features, sitting on a fucking fault line, was A-OK! There will be no problem! They say.
But they knew this was coming.
Why would they want to raise a kerfuffle like this, and try to place all in harms way knowingly?
It has to do with the US oil supply from the Tar Sands in Alberta more than likely. You didn't actually believe this was about the health and well being of the citizens of the world. Did you? Did you?

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Plans for nuclear power plants to supply electricity and steam to the Alberta oil sands should be put on hold until the full repercussions of using the technology are known, a Canadian parliamentary committee advised.

In a report on the sustainable development of the oil sands released this week, Parliament's natural resources committee steered clear of making a decision on using nuclear energy before the impact of placing the plants near oil sands projects are known.

Nah. The tar sands produce oil for the US, and the Harper Conservatives most important job is to ensure that it isn't interrupted.
So the blame Linda Keen campaign continued.
The shameless Gary Lunn wrote some threatening letters a few months back, and he got busted.
A thing of BEAUTY, was the letter that Linda Keen wrote outlining past events.
On the eve of the testimony before the parliamentary committee, in the dead of night.....The Harper Conservatives fired Linda Keen.

TORONTO - Fireworks are expected at a Commons committee Wednesday following the government's firing of the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Opposition MPs on the natural resources committee will likely demand to know from Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn why he fired Linda Keen, president of the arms-length commission, who was blamed by the government for the shutdown of the Chalk River, Ont., reactor last fall that cut the supply of medical isotopes.

Keen went public last week with complaints of political interference about phone calls and a letter she received from Lunn threatening her dismissal.

OH WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!!!!

Assistant deputy industry minister Michael Binder has been named as her interim replacement.

Think he is going to watch out for the health of Canadians and Americans? Or is he a sockpuppet for the Oil industry? Hmmmmmmmmmmm?

So, now that you are all filled in here. Do you feel comfortable sitting right next to an aging Unregulated nuclear reactor, closeish to the border, with Bush sycophant's running the fucking show?

Sleep well. I'm having trouble myself.
We are trying to make some noise. This cannot stand.
Any Kossacks interested in having a say? Heres the PM's address.

An earlier article at A Creative Revolution