A DEBACLE AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN IT (Part II)

This is part II of a report chronicling Ottawa’s role in the Muskrat Falls project as both enabler and colluder with the Government of NL and Nalcor.  It discusses numerous areas, albeit briefly, where the Feds ignored blatant holes in Nalcor's business case for the project, each embodying the certainty of project failure. It also describes how they empowered Nova Scotia to control award of the Federal Loan Guarantee (FLG), failed to perform essential due diligence after the project was sanctioned and, inexplicable, failed to intervene as the project's price tag doubled for reasons it had an obligation to all the taxpayers of Canada to understand.   

FEDERAL COMPLICITY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MUSKRAT FALLS (Part I)

This two part report chronicles Ottawa’s role in the Muskrat Falls project as both enabler and colluder with the Government of NL and Nalcor.  How the Feds empowered Nova Scotia to control award of the Federal Loan Guarantee (FLG) is discussed along with Ottawa’s failure to perform basic due diligence to protect Canadian taxpayers and reduce or eliminate the risk of default by the Government of NL. The articles describe the manner in which the Feds were complicit in an unviable project advanced under unwarranted assumptions. It also details how they refused to intervene as the MF project sank under gross management incompetence.  

Introduction
When the Government causes a catastrophe in our name, we are all collectively responsible. Such is the case with the Muskrat Falls project. 

In one way or another NL will pay for the debacle; just not the whole cost, because the accumulated provincial debt compounded by excessive borrowing for Muskrat has made our total debt unmanageable. We are effectively broke. 

But even if NL’s coffers were full, taking into account the role played by the Government of Canada as “enabler”  without whose guarantee Muskrat would have died in design, the Feds’ complicity in the sanction and its aftermath makes it a responsible party. The Federal Government’s actions, and often inaction, ought to be exposed.