Graham to Williams: Butt out!
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at tomorrow’s Council of Atlantic Premiers meeting in Churchill Falls, Newfoundland. Anyone care to guess what’s on the agenda?
For weeks the inestimable Danny Williams has been gleefully using the press to slam Shawn Graham’s tentative deal with Hydro-Quebec for the major assets of NB Power – a deal which will, if ratified, provide La belle province with yet another conduit to American energy markets and, most likely, savagely curtail The Rock’s power export opportunities.
That there’s no love lost between Williams and Quebec Premier Jean Charest is hardly news. Newfoundland endures the effects of a humiliatingly poor agreement for use of the Upper Churchill signed with Hydro-Quebec decades ago.
Now, Williams says, the greedy sons of guns want to keep Newfoundland in perpetual thrall by monopolizing access to the U.S. Northeast through New Brunswick. In all of this, he argues, Graham is behaving like a patsy.
New Brunswick’s premier already knows his political future is on the line, so the occasional outburst from his famously opinionated colleague seems like mere window dressing. Still, the barrage does wrankle. “Ultimately, we were able to achieve a deal that Danny Williams was looking for,” Graham recently told me in an interview. “We were hoping that he’d be able to celebrate our success, as I have celebrated his success.”
In other words, Williams, put your money where your mouth is. If you have a better offer, let’s see it.
He doesn’t, of course. And therein lay the source of his rancour. King Danny is accustomed to getting his way. He’s signed several remarkably lucrative (to Newfoundland and Labrador) offshore energy agreements. He practically owns the provincial legislature. And he’s a formidable foe to the normally unflappable Prime Minister of Canada.
Who is this pipsqueak Graham to upset his energy apple cart?
There is something marvellously invigorating about one of Canada’s most congenial premiers going toe to toe with one of Canada’s least. It’s like watching the proverbial 98-pound weakling kick sand in the face of the muscle-bound bully.
Still, all this is a distraction, amusing as it is, from the only point which should concern New Brunswickers: Does the proposed deal for NB Power make economic sense for the province now and in the future?
I say it does.
Despite the Auditor General of New Brunswick’s protestations to the contrary, the sale to Hydro-Quebec will net the province a cool $4.8 billion. How this equity is applied (to the $13 billion public debt, or to NB Power’s unfunded liability) is moot to the fact that money is, after all, money. And transformational economic change doesn’t happen when the finest suit in your wardrobe is a pickle barrel.
The deal also freezes residential rates at current levels, and provides advantageous prices to industrial users, for five years. Combine this with the provincial government’s aggressive corporate and personal tax cuts, and suddenly New Brunswick begins to look like a place where businesses might just want to set up.
But what happens after 2015? What’s to stop the Quebec carpet-baggers from gouging hard-working New Brunswickers? Moreover, what flexibility is there for the development and eventual transmission of electricity from home-grown, renewable energy suppliers? What about the wind, and the sun?
Again, the memorandum of understanding offers credible answers. After the “honeymoon” period, rates will be pegged to the province’s annual consumer price index (inflation), which typically hovers at about 1.8 per cent. Without the deal, power rates would likely increase by the customary 3.6 per cent per year. And if, heaven forbid, the province should endure double-digit inflation, then the price of everything would escalate – including the cost of servicing NB Power’s accumulated debt.
As for alternative energy opportunities, many are quite correct in wondering why the MOU is not more explicit on the subject; except, perhaps, that since no such opportunities currently exist to be commercialized, no appropriate language to cover them was deemed necessary.
Still, this is where the debate should focus over the next several weeks.
Unfortunately, thanks to the likes of Danny Williams and New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Leader David Alward, the conversation has been fraught with self-referential rhetoric, fear-mongering and agit-prop.
It would be to New Brunswick’s eternal shame if such an important issue were left to spin in the hot, gusty winds more typical of a Council of Atlantic Premiers meeting.
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November 19th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
“Does the proposed deal for NB Power make economic sense for the province now and in the future? I say it does.”
Good thing the people of NB are finished being herded by pundits and ‘economists’ who have the wool pulled over their eyes tighter than anyone.
NB Power is one of our best assets, however – it has been deliberately mismanaged and driven into the ground (see CEO bonus scandals, Turbines dropped into the ocean without recourse, orimulsion, Mactaquac dam and coal plants left to decay). NB Power’s debt was accumulated not because it is unprofitable, but because it was used as a cash cow – why do you think Quebec is willing to take more debt to ‘buy’ it? How could we even think of selling it for 0 dollars minus the cost of overruns on the Lepreau II debacle, with NFLD wanting to lease the transmission lines?
Fortunately, the people have seen past the Irving’s and their puppet’s spin on this issue – and we will not let a bunch of kleptocrats get away with voting for this in the dark (like when they doubled their pensions). Like it or not, participatory democracy is back in NB – and not a minute too soon.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Okay, Dan. You go with that. More “power” to you my friend. Looking forward to meeting you on the bread lines when this deal doesn’t go through. After all if, as you imply, my interests are feathered, I should be rich. I’m not.
As for Williams, a little history might serve.
The fantastic premier of NF/LA was never willing to “lease” the transmission lines. In fact, he was willing to cut a deal for transmission of Churchill power through New Brunswick — not unlike the one the Graham government has just (tentatively) signed with Hydro-Quebec.
Split the hairs any way you want, but NB Power is, has been, always will be an asset in play. Williams lost to his nemesis (Quebec). Again!
That’s it. That’s all she wrote.
And, BTW, how can a gargantuan liability also be “one of our best assets”? That’s a little like saying if my grandmother had a mustache, he’d be my grandfather.
This underpaid, entirely underappreciated “puppet” still says: Good for you Graham. Well done!
November 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Fair enough – I guess you’ll be able to say ‘I told you so’.
The only feathering on your part I’ve seen is some occasional fluff in Irving’s papers. It was still pretty good considering your constraints. On this power deal though, I’m not so sure.
That NB’s Bermudan overlords get major cutbacks on the few taxes they deign to pay, discount loans, free generators, bloated contracts and drastically lowered power rates while Shawn Graham or Bilderberg McKenna play Pinocchio with their noses clipped is undeniable.
Forgive me if I get the impression that the corporate / establishment leaning and funded NB bloggers (i.e. David Campbell, Philip Lee) are also playing the half-hearted approval / disinterested part rather poorly. If you’re going to support the deal, do it with some heart – if it’s really what you think, please try to convince us earnestly.
You used to seem pretty angry back in the day when tax rates were lowered for those who didn’t need it, banks were bailed out while home ‘owners’ were turned under water – and the globalist corporations got everything they could ever want while the people get nothing (see repeated pledges for NB welfare reform). Is freezing your power rate temporarily really enough to get you on board for this?
Furthermore, you talk as if this NB Power give-away was right on the tip of everyone’s tongue for years and you’ve thoroughly weighed the decision. I’d argue strongly that the former is untrue while the latter is impossible. The tendrils of a power company run through every part of our community and economy, the long-term ramifications of this sale are enormous.
My gut and head say this is a bad deal (and I’d give you a break if the opposite seemed true on your part), it was certainly conducted in the shadiest of manner. No public consultation occured prior to a signed ‘MOU’ (sounds like what cows do) to sell it all (just consider the massive stretches of land) to Quebec and the banksters.
Like throwing a baby (NB Power) out with the bathwater (fake fiat debt) – your argument is the baby is so messed up from a possessed ex-wife (NB Government) that we should hand it over to a white slaver (TD Bank/Quebec), who promise to take good care of it and cover most of your baby expenses.
I don’t know about you, Alec – but I don’t want my baby being a slave for the rest of its wretched life just to personally get out from under a difficult but entirely self-inflicted situation.
The pro-sell out crowd keep asking for alternatives – so here’s one: How about we throw McKenna’s bunch out and transfer our debts to the people’s bank of New Brunswick?
We bail out our power plant with some funny money (maybe NFLD could help us out with initial reserves) and we lease the lines to Quebec and give Williams his corridor at the same time? Everyone is happy, except the banksters.
Seriously though, the only good argument I see for selling it now is that nobody could be worse at running it into the ground. The Irving puppets (of both parties) who have fiddled about while the dams were literally cracking certainly don’t show any inclination to try and fix or even address the problems.
Lastly, that the notorious Bermudan-NB mafia dropped our new nuclear turbines in the ocean right before this bombshell announcement makes me certain there is little on the up and up with any of this story – it’s a scam, pure and simple. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what songs and dances go on before the people finally and firmly reject this shady deal.