It is rare
that anyone expresses concern over how electricity cost increases affect
industrial concerns, like Vale, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper or the Come By
Chance Refinery.
They possess
the financial, technical, legal, and political heft to lobby Governments, seek
recourse before agencies like the Public Utilities Board and, if necessary, the
Courts. The public rarely takes notice except
when a company’s pending demise becomes front page news.
These days the
Province is pretty cocky about its over-hyped economy. The Unions will only
sulk when the jobs are gone.
Enlightened
public policy will not disassociate the interests of industry from the public
interest.
While this
Province has long offered subsidies to the sector, this scribe is not fond of schemes
that download operating costs to taxpayers and shift high capital costs and risk
to their sponsor, the Government. That issue may be worth debating another day.
Still, such
incentives are a feature of developed and developing economies alike; they are
not likely to disappear.
