Lunn, Gary – Anti-environmental "yes-man" holds green BC riding

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.

A four-way vote split helped keep Lunn elected in 2006, when he won with 22,050 out of 63,771 votes - just 35 percent. The remainder of votes were split between the Liberals (17,082), NDP (13,763) and Greens (10,662). Other than Conservatives, only the NDP has won the riding in the past. Lunn's incumbency has led to the formation of the Shunn Lunn Committee that is promoting some form of cooperation (such as a primary or run-off) between non-Conservative candidates.

Kevin Logan belongs to the Shunn Lunn Committee and fielded some interview questions from HarperIndex.ca by email. He writes that "Gary Lunn is a yes-man in a safe seat, therefore he is ideal for the political blowback resulting from his Cabinet agenda." A local columnist, he says, "describes Lunn as a lightweight who will be pushed overboard once the scheme for AECL is fully in place."

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 [recently-defeated Australian Prime Minister John] 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."

Related individuals, organizations and significant events
Isotope privatization fiasco triggered "crisis"

Links and sources
  Moratorium on oil tankers on West Coast is disputed by federal cabinet minister, Brooks Bulletin, Dogwood Initiative, June 24, 2007
  The World According to Lunn, Charles Campbell, Dogwood Initiative, June 26, 2007
  Gary Lunn, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Harper's Fearless 'Dirty Gary', TheTyee.ca, June 29, 2007
  Harper signs onto GNEP..., StraightGoods.ca Extra! Extra!, December 17, 2007
  Harper, Howard and Bush: The axis of dirty energy, Greenpeace, September 06, 2007
  Nuclear watchdog head blasts Lunn over letter, Canadian Press, January 08, 2008
  Natural Resources Minister Wants To Streamline Oilsands Approval Process, Dogwood Initiative, July 12, 2007

Posted: January 14, 2008

Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca