Cancer inquiry likely to get extension: justice minister

Newfoundland and Labrador's breast cancer inquiry will likely get the extension it is seeking, the province's justice minister says.

Justice Margaret Cameron has asked for government approval — and funds — to continue her inquiry into flawed hormone receptor tests until February 2009.

When the provincial government called for the inquiry last summer, it struck a deadline of July 30.

Cameron did not start hearing evidence until March, in part because Eastern Health tried unsuccessfully in Newfoundland Supreme Court to block the public release of reports by two external experts.

Jerome Kennedy said Monday that the request appears reasonable and probably will be approved.

"There's a letter gone to Commissioner Cameron asking for some clarification, but I have no difficulty based on some of the comments previously made by the premier that she will get whatever extension is required to do her job properly, and the extension she has currently sought is February," Kennedy told reporters Monday.

Kennedy's comment marks a change in tone from almost three weeks ago, when he phoned a St. John's open line radio program to complain about what he called the tardy pace of the inquiry.

Kennedy, who said at the time that if the inquiry kept running on the same schedule, the entire health-care system would collapse, revealed during that call that Cameron had requested an extension to next February.

Kennedy and Premier Danny Williams earlier this month criticized the tone and style of the inquiry, particularly the style of questioning used by co-counsel Bern Coffey.

Late last week, Cameron dismissed a government application asking her to "clarify" her own rules on whether inquiry co-counsel could cross-examine witnesses.

Kennedy said cabinet has not yet made a final decision on the extension.

He said that could happen as soon as Cameron responds to the government's letter.

Cameron's inquiry is examining what went wrong with hundreds of hormone receptor tests, which are used to help determine a breast cancer patient's course of treatment. The inquiry is also examining how patients were contacted, and how officials dealt with the lab problems.