Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Another "top secret" binder, left behind

Dear me ... now our minister of natural resources, Lisa Raitt, leaves behind a top secret binder which contains some of the most sensitive secrets that Canada has -- namely our nuclear secrets. These include the tons of money spent at Chalk River, plans to sell off AECL that have been months in the making, and the fact that the rehab jobs at Bruce Nuclear are way behind schedule, even more than we were first lead to believe. Not to mention a handwritten note that the Cons were spending a billion seven, as necessary for "cleaning up a Liberal mess."
 
Nice partisan twist for a disaster a long time coming -- for a reactor that was out of date during the 1980s, when Mulroney was in charge!

The kicker? The binder was left behind at a TV studio in Ottawa ... for one week. This is the same government that lost the blueprints for the command centre for our commando squad, JTF2, and where a foreign minister "lost" a dossier at his then girlfriend's apartment.
 
And the same government that manages to balloon a deficit from the mid teens to over fifty billion -- and now, with the GM bailout, another ten on top of that.
 
It would be funny if it weren't true. Let's not forget, Canada has nuclear weapons capability and in light of the threat posed by Pakistan and North Korea, surely the thought of having our own arsenal must have crossed the minds of the leadership of the two largest parties in this country.
 
The problem is, we just don't secure our weapons grade uranium and plutonium well enough -- and this incident only proves the point that government ministers can't be trusted to protect even the secret recipes let alone the launch codes. And, the next time there's a security breach, something we really don't need to know could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda -- and trust me, it will happen sooner than we want to believe it. . Let's see Stephen Harper blame the Liberals and NDP when that happens.

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2 comments:

Oxford County Liberals said...

Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, Canada has more or less vowed not to have nuclear weapons capability on our soil. I'd be shocked if either party - even the Conservatives ever have contemplated this.

BlastFurnace said...

My recollection of history is that around the time of the missile crisis, Diefenbaker offered to have US missiles installed on Canadian soil. He later had second thoughts.

Mike Pearson, who had won the Peace Prize just a few years before, said Canada should keep its promise -- made it an election issue and won. The missiles stayed stationed in Canada until 1972.

I would strongly hope that the nuclear weapons option never becomes a possibility for us, Scott.

But the goal of non-proliferation has become a joke. North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel all have nuclear weapons; and to date only one country, South Africa, has disarmed its arsenal.

Securing the materials we do have should be a top priority. Slip-ups like this make me question where the priorities are; and don't forget the Cons are stacked with "Bible-thumpers" who believe it is the West's "Bible-ordered" destiny to destroy Russia and Iran, before it destroys Israel.