Nuclear safety? Depends on who you ask
[link to www.greenpeace.org]

[snip]

Canada’s approach to nuclear safety isn’t one to emulate. In Canada, the nuclear regulator is a promotional agency first and a safety watchdog second.
In 2008, Canada’s federal government fired Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) president Linda Keen. Behind her firing was Keen’s imposition of more modern international reactor safety standards on Canada’s nuclear industry.
[ [link to www.cleanbreak.ca]

After investigating the disaster, the Japanese government's Independent Investigation Commission conclude Fukushima was not the result of a freak act of nature and was instead due to collusion between the government, the regulator and plant operator TEPCO.
[ [link to www.nirs.org]

Last week, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Gregory Jaczko said that the existing fleet of reactors should be shut down because of the accident risks.

Jaczko has full liberty of expression on reactor risk since he was forced to resign as chairman of the NRC last year. Some say Jaczko was forced to resign because he was pushing US reactor operators to carry out expensive reactor upgrades in light of Fukushima. Sound familiar?
[ [link to www.csmonitor.com]

Keen and Jaczko lost their jobs because their definition of “safety” was different than that of their national governments. For them, safety meant safeguarding health, property and livelihood.

But for their governments and most of the regulators gathered in Ottawa this week “nuclear safety” means something entirely different: protecting the profits of nuclear companies.