It is an assistant's worst nightmare. Leaving secret documents for a week at a national news studio is right up there in the hierarchy of ministerial mistakes. The Conservatives moved quickly into damage control mode by firing the person responsible.

Opposition parties will beat their breasts and demand the head of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt on a platter. Government members will duck and bob and buy some time in the hopes that the whole unfortunate mess will simply blow over.

It probably will. Every Member of Parliament knows how easy it is to make a similar error. There but for the grace of God goes just about every politician dealing daily with dozens of confidential constituent documents. In Raitt's case, a single careless moment does not warrant her termination. Unlike disgraced Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier, Raitt did not regularly leave her dockets in other people's houses.

There is also plenty of precedent for ministers to escape termination after forgetting files in public places. In the days before cellphones, then-Finance minister Mike Wilson once left a brief in a telephone booth. He survived.

Expect the opposition to pepper the government with questions about how the said document could languish for a week without anyone even noticing. If I were in Parliament, I would pile in with the rest of them.

Mislaid private papers make great news. Years ago, I called a press conference at a Hamilton dumpster after discovering hundreds of confidential medical files there behind a provincial Workers' Compensation office. Within hours of the event, the provincial government revised its protocol on the shredding of medical files.

Opposition parties' attack and governments react. That is their job. While all eyes are focused on the gaffe, the real story behind Raitt's whirlwind round of ministerial interviews remains largely unchallenged.

Why would the minister responsible for Canada's energy supply privatize the management of a major public asset on the cusp of a world energy crisis? The current world supply of non-renewable fossil fuel is expected to run out within the next two decades.

Only two solutions can solve our global energy problems. Reduce energy consumption and/or develop new energy sources.

While the Kyoto Protocol is designed to target consumption, the race for alternative energy supplies is heating up. Oil companies are exploring more expensive methods of fossil fuel extraction.

Where geography cooperates, clean hydroelectric projects are being constructed. Risk-free solar, wind and multiple biofuel energy options are gaining momentum.

With each hike in the cost of fossil fuel extraction, the global viability of nuclear energy increases.

Canada has been ahead of the curve in nuclear development. Established in 1945, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is a recognized world leader in the field. The CANDU reactor, invented at the Chalk River facility up for grabs, has been sold around the world.

From isotope production for cancer treatment to the provision of safe, renewable energy, AECL should be an example of how government can work for the people.

This is no time to privatize an energy asset after more than six decades of investment and development. If there are crown corporation management problems, surely the minister can fix them.

But please don't throw out the baby with the heavy water. The Canadian public has a huge stake in the development of safe nuclear energy. That interest cannot be met by private holdings.

The government is banking on the fact that environmentalists opposed to nuclear energy won't react. Opposition parties should be lining up to pose tough questions to the minister about this partial privatization.

AECL is far too valuable to be hived off to the highest bidder. Raitt could live up to her billing as a rising Tory star by repositioning Chalk River as a world leader in the production and export of safe nuclear technology.

Instead, she is merely unloading a problem. Only a few months ago, a politically motivated dismissal of the nuclear safety regulator shook our faith in the system. The regulator was proved right. Safety problems prompted a second shutdown, causing a medical scramble to source nuclear isotopes necessary for cancer treatment.

Governments are elected to protect public assets, not devalue them. By firing the nuclear safety regulator, the government compromised the independent safety record of Canadian reactors.

Minister Raitt could make her mark by cleaning up the fractured relationship between the Crown corporation and its safety regulator.

Instead, a fire sale of AECL in the wake of unprecedented political bungling is the real Raitt story.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era Cabinet minister and deputy prime minister.

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