Gary Lunn

The Honourable Gary Vincent Lunn PC, MP
Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands
Incumbent
Assumed office 1997 federal election
Preceded by	Jack Frazer
Personal details
Born	(1957-05-08) May 8, 1957 Trail, British Columbia
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."

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).

External links

• Gary Lunn's Official Website
• Federal Political Biography from the Library of Parliament
• Shun Lunn Campaign

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