Credible solution on isotopes greeted with silence in Ottawa

Wasn't there an isotope crisis last year? You'd never know it until AECL announced, yet again, a delay in the start-up of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River. The medical isotopes issue had dropped from the headlines, as was illustrated by the icy silence that met the release of the expert panel report on Dec. 1.

Who could be happier with this turn of events than Stephen Harper? One more bullet dodged; one more pesky problem postponed. Our canny prime minister knows that the media, eventually, move on to another story.

No matter how dire the situation, if you're prime minister, assuming a Sphinx-like posture pays huge dividends. To take action to improve a situation – particularly in a minority Parliament – is a task best left for another day, on a different hill, away from the searchlight. The easier thing is to take a leaf out of Mackenzie King's book: obfuscate and prevaricate.

Just a few months ago, the unanticipated shutdown of the NRU reactor threw Canada's and the world's health-care systems into an unprecedented crisis. Harper then grandly pronounced that Canada was getting out of the medical isotope production business.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/763644--credible-solution-on-isotopes-greeted-with-silence-in-ottawa

He just wants to sell the whole industry, and forget about it.

His first response is always to attack, and after that we get silence.