Do you have a bad roommate stereotype? For me, the Bad Roommate is constantly in a bathrobe that I’m sure belongs to me, has without even enjoying it, finished off the leftovers I was counting on, and isn’t sure what they did today–yet certainly created an unfathomable mess in the kitchen. Among other things, the worst part about my Bad Roommate is that they defiantly occupy an essential space in the house and aerate bad vibes while doing so.
To put it another way, the Bad Roommate is a of kind of angry, bathrobed vacuum that ironically doesn’t clean. (My apologies to any roommates, current or fondly and formerly, who think I’m talking about them. In any case, I kid because I love).
I conjured up this image while reading reports that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canada’s federally-owned and beleaguered nuclear technology company, is set to receive a $200 million bail-out from the Harper government. The bail out, disclosed in the Conservative’s supplementary budget estimate, is the second the Crown corporation has received this year and makes the grand total of tax-payer subsidies doled out to AECL in 2009, $651 million. According to the document, this additional funding, “Will be used to address a cash shortfall caused by unexpected technical challenges on CANDU reactor refurbishment contracts.”
Now, I begrudgingly understand that we live in a bailout culture for all of the ‘too big to fail’ institutions out there. But sometimes out of frustration you have to ask your Bad Roommate, “So, you’re vowing to watch every episode of Six Feet Under today, and that’s cool, however, it didn’t occur to you clean up the house? Have you done anything today?” Along the same lines, I think it’s fair to ask whether AECL, Canada’s underachieving cash-annihilating roommate, should receive more patience and more money.
Since AECL was formed in 1952, the cumulative federal subsidy for the nuclear engineering company has been 20 billion dollars. Despite this enormous wad of cash, AECL has not successfully developed a new reactor since the late 60′s, and the corporation’s latest project, the Advanced CANDU Reactor, has been plagued by dramatic cost and schedule overruns.
With the amount of money and time being spent on AECL and the Canadian nuclear industry in general (with few results, it must be said) it’s probably time to ask our beleaguered roomie to move out. It’s probably time to find some renewable house mates.
Coinciding with this handout are curious reports that the federal government is now looking to privatize AECL. It’s true, Harper and the gang have temporarily ceased jamming out Beatles’ classics in order to deploy the ‘old bail it out and sell it off strategy’.
However, don’t expect us to receive anywhere near the billions of tax-dollars spent on AECL’s mandate of creating nuclear waste and blocking renewable energy creation in Canada. Most media reports the corporation’s price tag to be around $300 million. Even this price, much like an ad on craigslist asking $20 for an autographed SUM 41 poster, generates the question, who would buy this thing? What kind of wealthy fatalist would pay that amount of money for a corporation that hasn’t successfully sold or innovated any nuclear technology since the 60′s? Never mind that literally doorless artist collective house you partied at over the weekend, without exaggeration, AECL is a real fixer upper.
Then again, I do kind of like a project.
Tell you what Steve Harper, I know you’re having trouble getting rid of AECL. Because I’m an alright guy, I’ll give you $100 for AECL and throw in that autographed SUM 41 poster. I don’t think they’re a band any more, but that makes the item all the more collectible.
On second thought, I think I’ll enjoy my SUM 41 poster and hope that AECL continues to free-fall. Maybe then our governments can have the cash and will to invest in renewables and energy conservation, and then actually tackle the small things like climate change.
Stephen Cornwell
Posted on November 29, 2009 by Cara
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