these are the stupid people in charge....sigh

Isotope issue 'sexy,' Raitt heard to say on tape

Updated Mon. Jun. 8 2009 7:42 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Details of a taped conversation between Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt and her former communications director were released after a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge lifted a publication ban on its contents -- which could prove damaging to the minister.

Jasmine MacDonnell, who resigned from her position last week, was seeking an injunction against theHalifax Chronicle-Herald story detailing the conversation. The conversation was reportedly taped accidentally by MacDonnell she and Raitt drove to an event in Victoria, B.C. on Jan. 30, 2009.

MacDonnell then misplaced the recorder in the press gallery in Ottawa, and asked The Chronicle Herald to hold it for her until she could collect it. But the newspaper reports that -- five months later -- MacDonnell had not retrieved the device.

Justice Gerald Moir put a temporary publication ban in place on the details until he made his decision at 7:20 p.m. local time.

Moir said in his judgment that Raitt and MacDonnell discuss, in a critical manner, the political skills of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq on the handling of the medical isotope issue.

Moir said Raitt also discussed her desire to receive credit for dealing with the issue and "expresses the view it is a sexy issue."

"It is wrong to deprive the press, and the public it serves, of remarks made privately but not confidentially in the sense of trade secrets," Moir said.

Last week, MacDonnell resigned the day after it was revealed that a top secret briefing book belonging to Raitt was left behind after an interview at CTV News' Ottawa bureau.

During question period in the House of Commons, the opposition hammered Raitt with questions about the audiotape that has surfaced involving the minister.

Liberal environment critic David McGuinty led the charge, saying internal cabinet squabbling is undermining the confidence of Canadians at a time when the shutdown of the Chalk River, Ont. nuclear reactor is creating a shortage of medical isotopes.

He says the file should be taken away from "this distracted minister."

"The minister of natural resources was recorded when she was making disparaging remarks about her colleague, the minister of health, who she described as not very competent," McGuinty said.

"Can she tell the House unequivocally, loud and clear, that those remarks about the minister of heath in the media are accurate or not?"

McGuinty went on to say, "it's clear that this minister has absolutely no confidence in her colleague's ability to handle what is now a full fledged health care crisis."

Raitt didn't respond about the audiotape, but lashed back at McGuinty for getting some of his facts wrong with respect to reactors, and which countries would help cover the shortfall of medical isotopes caused by the shutdown at Chalk River.

"He said that Australia would not be able to export a single medical isotope. And again that is false," Raitt charged, "And he confused the countries of Belgium and the Netherlands."

The federal Liberals also continued to hammer Raitt with pointed questions about Canada's growing shortage of medical isotopes caused by the shutdown at the Chalk River nuclear facility.