Here's irony for you: After spending most of 2009 fixing up the 150-year-old Race Rocks lighthouse tower so that it doesn't fall over, Ottawa has decided it doesn't want it anymore.

Or maybe -- probably -- that's an oversimplification. Heaven knows confusion shrouds the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' sudden designation of 976 unstaffed light stations and lighthouses as surplus to needs.

Retired senator Pat Carney says DFO appears to be using a new heritage-lighthouse law -- one that she spent 10 years pushing through Parliament -- to dump unwanted properties.