There could have been more jobs created have it not for some of Harper’s policy. Part of Ontario’s stimulus plan was to build a new Nuclear plant to meet its electricity demand once our economy recover. They were set to award it to the Crown corporation AECL, which is also based in Ontario. But Harper’s campaign to sell AECL to private company put that plan on hold. Harper’s staff even went on smear campaign against AECL claiming it is a sinkhole since billions of dollars have been spent throughout AECL’s history. Perhaps Harper needs to be reminded that AECL have half a century of history and was a prominent and independent scientific institution attracting top scientist around the world. NASA have to consult AECL for assistance in figuring out the cause of the space shuttle crash. Research done at AECL goes beyond Nuclear.

While Harper whine about spending billions for scientific research, he so easily spent billions for a weekend of photo ops in Toronto’s Summit. He so readily spent billions on fighter jet that would have limited use against Afghan guerrilla, benefiting only U.S. weapon manufacturer. Meanwhile, job losses mounts as Harper pursue a lobbyist friendly policy of handing over our Crown corporation to either a foreign government owned or subsidized company, or private corporations. If there’s any failure on AECL part, it is due to constant political tinkering with the Crown corporation. Mulroney sell off all profit to be had from medical isotope production to private company MDS Nordion, leaving AECL to produce the isotope for others to profit. The contract is so lopsided you would think the government of that day was working for private company rather than taxpayers, who are the real owner of the Crown corporation. Now Harper is picking up where Mulroney left off by selling the only profitable division of AECL. All this at a time of expected nuclear renaissance when various government are heavily investing in their equivalent nuclear agency. Even Cambodia is considering building a Nuclear Plant.

All this uncertainty created by Harper has resulted in thousands of job losses in Ontario, and even more from lost job opportunities that would have helped our economy. Hydro Quebec recently delayed planned work on its nuclear reactor due to Harper’s attempt to sell AECL. This put a further chill on the job market. An audit is needed to investigate and ensure taxpayer’s are not shortchanged as Harper charge ahead on selling off our nuclear future in a very secretive process. The banker appointed by Harper to oversee AECL’s sell has close connection to French government owned Areva. An independent audit like one from Sheila Fraser might be needed to clear up any possibility of corruption and under the table deals.

A good read is an article from Montreal Gazette: Going the wrong way on isotopes, reactors.

This is just one of the many crisis manufactured by Harper. First he moved to give up our energy independence by putting AECL on the block claiming millions have to be spent and the company is dysfunctional. Areva, the French company rumored to be the likely buyer of AECL have lots of cost overrun also and worse – have safety records that are being questioned. (read NY Times Special Report on U.S. government concern about Areva’s Safety). And Harper bundled watering down environmental assessment in the budget bill that also allows him to sell off AECL and Canada Post International service without scrutiny. This is the same guy who fired Linda Keen of CNSC compromising that agency’s independence and reputation when it comes to nuclear environment and safety issues. With his new power to water down environmental assessment, would he even blink an eye in pressuring CNSC to take it easy on new AECL owner to make the deal even better for them? While Harper complained about having to give millions to keep our crown company, he so easily spent billions of dollars on G20 summit for fence, fake lakes and stubbornly insisting on holding it in the heart of downtown Toronto against the wishes of Toronto’s Mayor and police. The exhibition place was touted as a more ideal location that will be less of a security nightmare. He so easily spent about $16 billions on fighting jet which have limited use in fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. So what lobbyist is involved in this deal this time? Areva’s lobbyist apparently stop all their lobbying after Harper appointed their banker to take care of AECL sell. This government obviously see fit to waste billions of dollars at a time of economic difficulty. The scared-of-election Liberal opposition just keep letting damaging Harper’s bill pass. It just makes Harper bolder and bolder acting more like a dictator than the Prime Minister of a democratic country.

It was less stringent environmental assessment and regulation that lead to the BP disaster in U.S. Gulf coast. Now Harper’s attempt at watering down the important government role of environmental assessment could lead to another Walkerton, BP or even Nuclear concerns if we are not careful. Canada have one of the toughest nuclear regulation through CNSC. With the sale of AECL to private firms almost a certainty, we need to maintain current level of regulation not reduce them to appease private investors. Any environmental disaster brought on by this bill in the future is not only Harper’s fault but also Iggy, for intentionally letting this bill pass in the Parliament through choreographed absenteeism.

Are they really this short sighted and stupid or simply corrupt? One excuse being used was it will save the taxpayer money. That’s full of stinky S__T! The isotope and research division of AECL still have to be shouldered by taxpayer. But now the profitable division is taken away which means they’ll be solely relying on taxpayers money now with no possible source of income.

Thanks Harper for giving CANDU to a private firm. Worse than Mulroney who gave medical isotope profit to MDS Nordion and the privatization of Petro Canada. As the nuclear power sale is set to skyrocket and enormous profit to be made due to pressure on government worldwide to cut pollutant and greenhouse emission. We then rush to sale a promising technology to a private firm. China already have CANDU (built on time and on budget) and with their joint research with AECL, it won’t be surprising if they chose CANDU for the bulk of their new Nuclear plant. I find it hard to believe that Harper can’t see something that is already at work. China have signed agreement with AECL. Are they really stupid or just corrupt?

The noise generated by pro and anti Climate change advocate is a bit tiring. As far as I am concern, oil are controlled by few Texan and Middle Eastern Royalty cartel artificially making it expensive. In some countries, price fixing is illegal. Then why is oil cartel tolerated? It is also a pollutant. No question about it. Not even taking into account the global warming equation, it’s a no brainer that we should move toward renewable energy. Hong Kong already have electric car. And China are actively investing in infrastructure and research to help promote electric car (China’s BYD cheap electric car beat GM, Nissan and Toyota -CNN). Unfortunately the one spearheading this new technology is not the usual developed countries but developing country like China. It is not a question of science, the facts and technology is there, it is a question of commitment by the rich countries. Unfortunately, a lot of the  rich countries have stake in oil and would keep on dragging their feet as long as they can. The wave of change is coming, either we get on board or get left behind.

The fact that this massacre is garnering international condemnation would help shone a spotlight on the violent political culture that exist in that country. Maintaining Democracy is hard work. Unfortunately Philippine have a long way to go to overcome all the hurdles a young democracy faces.  International condemnation would help pressure the Philippine government to do something and not treat this as business as usual.

News Source and Related Article : Christian Science Monitor Global News Blog

Associated press have a more graphic detail account of the massacre.

An AECL scientist said:

“Historically, whenever you sell a technology to a foreign country, you lose it,”

The government want to sell off the only division at AECL that has large potential to see huge profit in the near future (the Nuclear plant division) while retaining the research division. But that’s not the end of it. The research division will be contracted out. Based on past contract related scandal, contracting out the research division open up huge potential for corruption. Haliburton, Sponsorship Scandal, the “billion dollar with nothing to show for it” Ontario’s Health Contract are just few of the latest and most prominent scandal. Contracting out work especially when it involves research just does not make sense unless you are a lobbyist of contracting firm.

AECL would do better if they are left alone without constant political interference and constantly changing executive officials made up of political appointee of which ever political party happens to be ruling at that time. We can have the brightest scientist and engineers but if the upper management who are indebted to politicians, who are in turn indebted to their campaign contributor, is constantly reorganizing and restructuring the company, then it won’t matter. Politicians who constantly sell profitable or soon to be profitable division (like Mulroney selling off medical isotope division profit to Nordion) to private firms, then public funds will just continue to be wasted.

Harper’s government claim AECL need to be commercialized. But with Canada’s energy future at stake, can we just simply dumb down the value of scientific research to how much profit we can make right now? What’s more troubling is there’s enough evidence that the expected and inevitable nuclear renaissance, and the foothold AECL’s CANDU already have in China and India – two potentially biggest market in the near future, are about to provide AECL with influx of rich revenue. But the government is now rushing to privatize them? This same division is also where AECL get most of its profit right now with the continuous contract in refurbishment of Canada’s nuclear plant fleet.

Privatize the revenue generating division and contract out research division? Make sense for private company looking to make profit but does not make sense if you care about Canadian interest and its future international reputation in research and technology. So taxpayer would be left with a totally profitless crown corporation and paying more to contracting firm.

For now, Harper is keeping a tight lid on the privatization plan for AECL.

Fox notorious commentator Limbaugh claim he is not racist. But apparently CNN and some blog reviewed his past comments and revealed lots of racist comment being made. Some of the comments as enumerated by mediamatters.org are:

Obama is “more African in his roots than he is American” and is “behaving like an African colonial despot.”

Latching onto LA Times op-ed, Limbaugh sings “Barack, The Magic Negro.” (and repeated it 27 times in one show).

Limbaugh suggests Obama would not have acted on Somali pirates if he’d known they were “actually young, black Muslim teenagers.”

Limbaugh called illegal immigrants an “invasive species.”

Limbaugh repeatedly calls Native Americans “Injuns.” (an offensive term / slur against Native American).

British Guardian gave a scathing criticism of Limbaugh’s racist comments. Including racist comment about NFL players (which have lots of black players). On another instance, Limbaugh claim there’s a media conspiracy to favor black quarterback. All of this is coming back to haunt him as NFL rejected his bid to buy the NFL team Ram.  The article indicated that NFL owners, players and administrator are now shunning Limbaugh. The Guardian sport blog refers to Limbaugh and American talk show as:

Suffice to say they are a wicked crew, given to the same level of self-doubt and basic decency as a fox in a chicken coup….. in a community of mean-spirited pygmies, no one is intellectually smaller than Rush Limbaugh.

(Latest news on carbon-capture billion dollar handout: Feds Pledge another $779 million for Carbon-Capture)

This comes amid controversy over Harper’s continued use of taxpayer money to fund partisan advertisement and his MP have been caught by the opposition with handing out taxpayers fund to their constituent replacing the Government of Canada logo with Conservative logo. It’s good for Harper to keep his distant now. Whether he has prior knowledge or not, his past actions have made his MP think these actions are ok. Prior to this incident, the normally non partisan Government of Canada website were being plastered with Harper’s picture and the red color changed to Conservative blue. Pro-Conservative campaign style ad were paid for with taxpayers fund.

It’s so nice of them to waste taxpayer’s money at a time of deep economic difficulty.