Uh oh ...
The Conservative government rejected the findings of independent headhunters last year on the hiring of a new chair for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., picking instead a partisan fundraiser who abruptly left last week during the isotope crisis.
Jean-Pierre Soublière, who was the acting chair of AECL in late 2005, said in an interview Monday he was certain he was twice selected by the independent panel to become the permanent chairman of the board.
The first selection process was launched under the Liberal government of Paul Martin, but the nomination did not proceed because of the 2006 election. The incoming Harper government did not like the results of that process and launched a second one, which also recommended Mr. Soublière, an Ottawa consultant who was linked to the Liberal Party of Canada.
But the Tories refused to appoint Mr. Soublière. Instead, they nominated Michael Burns, a former executive vice-president at B.C. Gas and onetime fundraiser for the Canadian Alliance, a precursor to the Conservative Party.
Mr. Burns left his position late Friday, and Health Minister Tony Clement said in a television interview Monday the departure was related to the shutdown of an AECL reactor that created a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes.
“I think it's fair to say it confirmed our impression that there has to be new management, there has to be better management, at AECL,” Mr. Clement said.
And you know where this is going, don't you? Yes ... yes, you do. Personally, if it were me, all that frantic evasion of actual news would leave me just plumb tuckered out, so you have to give the BTs credit for sheer endurance, don't you?
Like they say in the farming village where I grew up, "Strong like bull. Smart like tractor."
4 comments:
LOL @ "Mr. Burns"
I'm really quite astonished at how amateurishly (or more amateurishly than usual) the Harpies handled all of this. It's like they went out of their way to be hoist on their own petard.
Tony Clement's blather about how they had to politicise the issue quickly as a shot across the Opposition's bow was particularly cretinous and hysterical.
You know, this may have a lot to do with the edict not to speak with Muldoon anymore. He would have finessed this far better than these doofii are managing to do.
I'm just relieved media have finally decided to hone in on the AECL angle of it - instead of the 'mean, nasty, paper-pushing regulator bureaucrat unreasoning nannies' angle the Cons were flinging.
It's heartening to see civil servants like Ms Keen and the head/s of Elections Canada standing firm in the face of rank swift boating, but it's also infuriating that they must. The Great Uniter has done more to polarize jobs over party lines than any previous Prime Minister I can ponder.
Isn't there even a sniff of 'sure we're appointing her/him from our backgrounders, but are they going to make us look stupid once they have the job and the trust of Canadians?' in the PMO? If I'm looking to their career template south of the 49th, I'd have to say no. Harper doesn't seem inclined to veer off his ideologic master's plan one iota.
I don't want Chalk River to come close to a Katrina/New Orleans situation. If the levees break at Chalk River, there's another river everyone will be up without a paddle.
It's heartening to see civil servants like Ms Keen and the head/s of Elections Canada standing firm in the face of rank swift boating, but it's also infuriating that they must.
This is all part of the decades-long assault on the Canadian civil service, imported straight from the US, where civil services really are awful, as anyone who's ever had to go to the DMV can attest. It's the rightwing campaign to prove government doesn't work by making sure government doesn't work.
Post a Comment