It would have been easy for politicians to dilly-dally and make political hay out of the recent shutdown of the Chalk River nuclear reactor and the subsequent shortage of medical isotopes it caused.

It would have been easy, and it would have been wrong, too.

Instead, in a refreshing change of pace on Parliament Hill, common sense prevailed and our federal government cut away bureaucracy and pushed through emergency legislation to restart the 50-year-old reactor.

The Liberals, for a short time, tried to gain points by playing up the potential danger involved with bypassing the advice of Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission. Some critics went as far as to suggest Chalk River could be the next Chernobyl.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people worldwide, including many in Muskoka, were having potentially critical tests delayed.   There comes a time when practicality has to trump politics, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper and our own MP and Minister of Health Tony Clement did just that. They were right to override the regulators on this one and leave the petty debates for another day. It was routine maintenance to check on the reactor’s emergency power system, hardly something worth prolonging imperative medical tests around the world.

While Harper and Clement should be lauded for not holding up the show, they also have some accountability on this one. The Ministry of Health should have known the far-reaching implications of this shutdown and made plans to lessen its impact before Canada took a black eye on the world stage.

There is no excuse for the disconnect between the nuclear regulator and Clement’s ministry. That sorry lack of communication and awareness led to what many physicians were calling a “potentially catastrophic”  situation.

Clement told this newspaper “We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” We hope Clement acts with the same swiftness and decisiveness on this point as he and his government did in restarting the reactor.

BH