Harper Index: Lunn, Gary - Anti-environmental "yes-man" holds green BC riding

[tuvor]

Isotope controversy may have been a diversion from opening Canada up for global nuclear waste.



VICTORIA, BC, January 14, 2008: Gary Lunn, the cabinet minister at the centre of the controversy about re-starting a nuclear reactor to produce medical isotopes - against advice from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission - is known as a political "yes-man" who sides vocally with industry on environmental questions.

Despite the strongly pro-environment views of many of his constituents in the rural and island parts of his riding, Lunn is known for the pro-industry stands he has taken on environmental issues as natural resources minister. He has been condemned by BC residents for ending a 35-year old moratorium on super-tankers in coastal waters. He has aggressively advocated expansion of the use of nuclear power to extract oil from Alberta tar sands and pushed deregulation of tar sands development. He has enrolled Canada as a member of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which promotes the export of uranium and nuclear reactors, along with the return of the radioactive waste (spent reactor fuel) to the supplier countries for disposal and reprocessing. Critics say this could result in spent nuclear waste being imported to Canada for storage.

Having been elected four times, Lunn's seat is considered safe, even though he last won with only a third of the vote in Saanich-Gulf Islands, a riding that combines wealthy suburban Victorians with rural, environmentally-oriented islanders. He was first elected to Parliament in the federal election of 1997 as a member of the Reform Party and re-elected in 2000 as a Canadian Alliance candidate. In April 2001, Lunn was part of the group of Alliance MPs openly criticizing leader Stockwell Day, and was suspended from caucus in May of the same year as a result. He would be viewed as a strong and long-term Stephen Harper loyalist.

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Logan writes that Lunn's story "is a mediocre one. This last year has been his banner year and only because he has a litany of blunders. He made some political hay announcing some negligible green energy initiatives and working trilateral energy agreements that seemed to parallel the SPP process, but he really jumped to the front of the global nuclear parade. Of course, we saw how that strategy delivered for Howard and so did Harper, who quit spouting off about being an energy superpower. Harper and Lunn stuck their heads in the tarsands and quietly announced our joining the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership just before sparking up the isotope insanity... The whole charade took the scrutiny off them joining the GNEP and the fallout of the waste issue that comes along with that partnership."

http://www.harperindex.ca/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=00127

[Doctor Cynic]

1. He's the MP for my home riding

and he only won because the district because of the incoherent way the boundaries are set up. The Greens cracked 16% in 2004 and 10% in 2006, and Lunn got no more than 35% of the vote. This is exactly why we need to ditch the FPTP voting system, so that we don't get people we didn't vote for.