It's a tough and tricky world out there. That's why it is really important that we staff all our agencies with the mostly highly competent people we can, including not only excellent subject matter knowledge related to their responsibilities, but also excellent ability to work with and recognize the talents and knowledge of others. The time for putting political bag men in charge of a technical outfit like AECL was never right: nor retired politicians with no subject matter expertise. And incidentally, that means highly qualified people looking after information systems, which seems grossly grossly lacking based on recent experience. If you can't even print people's cheques correctly, can you imagine how folks like that could screw up national security - when all government departments are forced to work together with a bunch of EDP bunglers? We need to be protected from ourselves before we start pointing fingers at innumerable others who are guaranteed to be looking for steals.