Ok, maybe it’s just my biased self thinking this, but it appears those of a more objective nature are thinking the same thing, if not outright saying it: I think the strategy to bring Health Minister Tony Clement in after Linda Keen testified about the circumstances of her firing from the Nuclear Safety Board totally backfired.
Keen was as sharp as a tack and very knowledgeable with her replies, while Clement just droned on the same tired-out and overused line the Conservatives have used about “needing to save lives” and looked clueless when cross-examined by the Opposition. I think this is a case of some PMO Conservative strategists concocting up some “we’ll get the last word” strategy, (I wonder if Sandra Buckler was in on this idea too), but it doesn’t work if the last word from an out of his league Cabinet Minister makes the government look incompetent, and worse, looks as if they were trying to manufacture this crisis to get rid of Ms. Keen. It would be almost too charitable to say that Tony Clement’s attempts at damage control after Ms. Keen’s testimony was a total flop.
The gov. alleges that Keen’s mandate calls for her to be responsible for the health and safety of Canadians. Surely that would be implicitly understood, even if not specifically stated in the mandate, to mean as it relates to nuclear safety, nuclear waste management, etc. If she were responsible for the overall health and safety of Canadians, then surely she would be in conflict because she would have the power to ignore nuclear health and safety issues for the sake of overall health and safety ones, or vice versa.