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Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said Wednesday that he fired the head of the nuclear safety watchdog for her “lack of leadership” in handling the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor late last year.
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen was fired hours before she and Lunn were set to appear before a natural resources committee meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Lunn, in his appearance Wednesday morning, told the committee that the closure of the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., “threatened a national and international health crisis.”
He also said that Keen failed to quickly resolve an impasse between the commission and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation that operates the facility.
She failed to manage the work, lost the confidence of the commission and no longer meets the high standard of conduct expected from public office holders, he said.
While Keen, who is to appear before the committee Wednesday afternoon, will remain a member of the commission, assistant deputy industry minister Michael Binder has been named as interim president.
Keen was fired days after she publicly accused Lunn of interfering with the independence of the arm’s-length watchdog.
“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 Chalk River reactor generates two-thirds of the radioisotopes used around the world in medical procedures and tests. It was shut down on Nov. 18 because of safety concerns.
A ministerial directive on Dec. 10 ordered the CNSC to reopen the site. The agency refused, insisting a backup safety system be installed to prevent the risk of a meltdown during an earthquake or other disaster.
On Dec. 11, an emergency measure passed through the House of Commons overturning the watchdog’s decision, and the reactor was restarted for a 120-day run on Dec. 16.
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.
“The course of action contemplated was extremely ill-advised, an appalling use of authority and judgment,” Harper told CBC News in December.
Keen became head of the commission in 2001 and had been serving her second five-year term.
With files from the Canadian Press
CBC News