Secret Canada nuclear papers left in TV studio
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Senior Canadian officials left a binder full of confidential nuclear documents in a television studio and made no attempt to retrieve them, the TV network involved said on Wednesday.
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The incident is likely to increase pressure on the minority Conservative government, already under fire for its handling of the economic crisis. The main opposition Liberal Party said on Tuesday it would decide next week whether to try to bring down the Conservatives in Parliament.
The binder was found in a CTV television studio after a visit by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt. CTV, which kept the binder for six days before breaking the news, said the documents showed the government would spend far more money on a troubled nuclear reactor than it had acknowledged.
The aging Chalk River reactor in eastern Ontario was shut down in May and will not resume production of medical isotopes for at least three months. It is run by government-owned firm Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which Ottawa wants to sell to foreign firms.
Chalk River produces most of the isotopes distributed by MDS Nordion, a subsidiary of Canadian health sciences company MDS Inc, and about a third of the global medical isotope supply.
CTV said the documents showed the government would spend C$72 million ($66 million) more on Chalk River this year than it had revealed in the budget. They also listed another C$100 million in supplementary funding to keep AECL solvent.
The revelation is doubly embarrassing for Ottawa, given that former Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier was forced to resign in May 2008 after leaving secret documents in the apartment of a girlfriend who had ties to organized crime.
The nuclear documents included a note listing total spending on AECL since 2006 at C$1.7 billion and a memo characterizing this as "cleaning up a Liberal mess". The Conservatives took over from the Liberals in early 2006.
Geoff Regan, natural resources spokesman for the Liberals, questioned how anyone could have confidence in Raitt.
"It's extremely disturbing to think that they would leave these documents behind and then no one would go looking for them for days on end," he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
No one from the offices of Raitt or Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to requests for comment.
The Liberals need the support of both of the other two opposition parties in Parliament to bring down Harper and that is by no means guaranteed.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090603/canada/canada_us_nuclear_4
ADVERTISEMENT
The incident is likely to increase pressure on the minority Conservative government, already under fire for its handling of the economic crisis. The main opposition Liberal Party said on Tuesday it would decide next week whether to try to bring down the Conservatives in Parliament.
The binder was found in a CTV television studio after a visit by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt. CTV, which kept the binder for six days before breaking the news, said the documents showed the government would spend far more money on a troubled nuclear reactor than it had acknowledged.
The aging Chalk River reactor in eastern Ontario was shut down in May and will not resume production of medical isotopes for at least three months. It is run by government-owned firm Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which Ottawa wants to sell to foreign firms.
Chalk River produces most of the isotopes distributed by MDS Nordion, a subsidiary of Canadian health sciences company MDS Inc, and about a third of the global medical isotope supply.
CTV said the documents showed the government would spend C$72 million ($66 million) more on Chalk River this year than it had revealed in the budget. They also listed another C$100 million in supplementary funding to keep AECL solvent.
The revelation is doubly embarrassing for Ottawa, given that former Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier was forced to resign in May 2008 after leaving secret documents in the apartment of a girlfriend who had ties to organized crime.
The nuclear documents included a note listing total spending on AECL since 2006 at C$1.7 billion and a memo characterizing this as "cleaning up a Liberal mess". The Conservatives took over from the Liberals in early 2006.
Geoff Regan, natural resources spokesman for the Liberals, questioned how anyone could have confidence in Raitt.
"It's extremely disturbing to think that they would leave these documents behind and then no one would go looking for them for days on end," he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
No one from the offices of Raitt or Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to requests for comment.
The Liberals need the support of both of the other two opposition parties in Parliament to bring down Harper and that is by no means guaranteed.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090603/canada/canada_us_nuclear_4