From CBC report “Liberals pledge watchdog independence” (emphasis and notes added),
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Tuesday his party would put limits on the federal government’s influence over its watchdogs.
“I’m willing to accept those limits, and we will put forward in the Liberal platform in the months ahead some clear definitions of how we would safeguard the independence of these tribunals …,” said Ignatieff.
Ignatieff spoke following a Liberal roundtable on governance, which heard from the former heads of three agencies who say they experienced interference from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.
The speakers included former nuclear safety commission head Linda Keen, former RCMP public complaints commission head Paul Kennedy, and Peter Tinsley, the former military police complaints commissioner.
Keen called her dismissal “an attack without precedent in Canada.” In 2008, the Conservatives said she lost the government’s confidence over the way she handled the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor. [K note: Sadly, Ms. Keen’s concern was later proved right as her science was correct.]
CBC’s Katie has an excellent live blog entry which I will be reading much closer. Here is an excerpt,
[Former President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Linda] Keen notes that tribunals are often called ‘cousins of the court’, and as such, must be allowed to operate independently. She, on the other hand, was ‘fired by the prime minister’ the day before she was scheduled to testify before committee on the isotope crisis (the last one, that is), but she recalls that her termination came after a ’strange year’ of relations between herself and the then-minister. She recaps the decision to hold the tribunal responsible, which she calls ‘an unprecedented attack’ — and one that left commissioners fearing for their jobs. She pays tribute to two of the other panelists — also former commissioners, noting that ‘Paul and Peter did their jobs.’ As for her, she now works as a risk advisor in the private sector.
Because of Ms. Keen’s sad and unjust experiences (see a search of my blog entries written about Ms. Keen), I now put my trust in a trained-scientist much more than the ill-advised federal politicians from all parties (yes, MPs from all parties collectively over-rule Ms. Keen’s scientific judgement, and these federal politicians were all “beeping” wrong). I will always remember “Parliament voted to bypass the order of the safety regulator and the reactor was restarted Dec. 16 [2007].”
Posted in Canada, ethics, politics, Science, Science & Technology 
