Gary Lunn
Gary Vincent Lunn | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands | |
Assumed office 1997 federal election | |
Preceded by | Jack Frazer |
Personal details | |
Born | Trail, British Columbia | May 8, 1957
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | Alexandra Lunn |
Residence(s) | North Saanich, British Columbia |
Profession | Lawyer |
Portfolio | Minister of Natural Resources |
Gary Vincent Lunn, PC, MP (born May 8, 1957, in Trail, British Columbia) is a Canadian Member of Parliament for the British Columbia riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands and Minister of Natural Resources in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He was the Official Opposition Critic for Métis and Non-Status Indians, Minister of State for Northern Development, and Critic of the Secretary of State for Human Resources Development. He is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
He attended the University of Victoria, where he completed a Bachelor of Law. He has practised law in Victoria, and resides in Sidney, British Columbia.[1]
Political career
He was first elected to Parliament in the federal election of 1997 as a member of the Reform Party of Canada and was re-elected in 2000 as a member of the Canadian Alliance. In April 2001, Lunn was one of the first Alliance MPs to openly criticize the leadership of Stockwell Day, and was suspended from caucus in May of the same year as a result. He briefly sat with the Democratic Representative Caucus under the leadership of Chuck Strahl, but in November 2001, he left to rejoin the Alliance after Day agreed to hold a leadership race. He was permitted to return to the party in January 2002, during the leadership of John Reynolds, following Day's resignation.
In the federal election of 2006, he won re-election against Liberal Candidate Sheila Orr and NDP candidate Jennifer Burgis.
Minister of Natural Resources
On February 6, 2006, he was sworn in as Natural Resources Minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. With his appointment to Cabinet he was sworn in as a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada giving him the right to use the honorific "The Honourable" and the Post Nominal Letters "PC" for life.
Chalk River reactor shutdown
Lunn fired Linda Keen, the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, on January 15, 2008. Keen, who was due to appear before a parliamentary committee the next day, had ordered a shutdown of the NRU reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, which is operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, in November, 2007, over AECL's failure to perform safety upgrades.
Appearing before a parliamentary committee January 16, 2008 Lunn refused to cite one example of what Linda Keen had done wrong in her job, only that she had lost the confidence of the government. "These are the kinds of Republican tactics this town has never seen before," Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South) told the natural resources committee. "The Prime Minister and the people around the Prime Minister will stop at nothing. ... They will fabricate, in my mind, a case to dismiss a senior official, an independent regulator," McGuinty told reporters later. Lunn told the committee: "We do not believe she fulfilled her duties. There was an urgency to this situation, make no mistake ... it would have meant life and death for some patients."[1]
AECL falls under Lunn's management as Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. The reactor shutdown caused problems with supply shortage of medical radioisotopes, which are used for testing to determine whether a patient has a disease. Canada produces more than half the world's supply. The Canadian House of Commons passed emergency legislation in mid-December, 2007, with unanimous support, to get NRU restarted quickly. There has been no backup reactor for NRU since NRX was decommissioned in 1992, making it very difficult for upgrades and maintenance to be performed on NRU. AECL has been underfunded for more than a decade (The Globe and Mail, January 17, 2008, p. A1).
References
- ^ Richard Brennan, Bruce Campion-Smith. "PM blasted for firing of nuclear watchdog". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
External links
- Gary Lunn's Official Website
- Federal Political Biography from the Library of Parliament
- Shun Lunn Campaign
- 1957 births
- Current Members of the Canadian House of Commons
- Members of the Canadian House of Commons from British Columbia
- Reform Party of Canada MPs
- Canadian Alliance MPs
- Conservative Party of Canada MPs
- Members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada
- Living people
- People from Victoria, British Columbia
- University of Victoria alumni
- British Columbia lawyers
- Canadian lawyers