BAY DU NORD: OUR POLITICIANS GENUFLECT TO CENTRAL CANADA

 Last week’s post by Ron Penney, a member of the negotiating team that hammered out the terms of the “Atlantic Accord” for the joint Federal/Provincial management of NL’s offshore oil and gas, ought to remind us of its importance and hard-fought origins.

It should raise concern, too, that a process that began under Premier Paul Davis, with an amendment to the Atlantic Accord Implementation Act (the slippery slope) in 2015, was compounded in 2019 when the Feds made changes to their environmental legislation, which the Ball Government refused to oppose, which effectively gave the GoC control over offshore environmental assessments. This was not the intent of the Accord.  When the Feds stop approving Development Plan Applications, what is the function of the C-NLOPB?

RATE MITIGATION: DR. FUREY'S FALSE DIAGNOSIS

Guest Post by PlanetNL

PlanetNL39: Dr. Furey’s False Diagnosis

Premier’s Rate Mitigation Plan is a Bust

In his old profession, Dr. Furey could never get away with giving a terminally ill patient a pain killer and proclaiming to them that they are cured.  In politics though, he is shamelessly practicing that game to the fullest.  If you believed his July 28 grandstand with his pal the Prime Minister was indeed a good and permanent rate mitigation solution for Muskrat Falls, then you have taken his bait, hook, line, and sinker. 

There is very little in the announced Agreement in Principle that permanently decreases the cost of Muskrat to be borne by ratepayers.  This post will explain the problems and risks of five of the six measures that were announced as the rate mitigation solution.  It will also identify additional risks to demonstrate how impossible the task it is to have ratepayers pay for Muskrat.  But that won’t stop the politicians from trying to do it anyway.

RATE MITIGATION: FOOL ME TWICE…

Throughout the Nation’s Capital and beyond, the loud drumbeat of an impending General Election is heard. The pundits forecast that the new GG will be asked to dissolve Parliament around the end of August. That may leave as little as six weeks for PM Trudeau to stop dithering over “rate mitigation” and address the Muskrat Falls debacle.

Newfoundlanders are doing themselves no favours ignoring the fact that such an agreement remains outstanding.

The public are witnesses to Premier Ball’s failed attempt but have learned little from the experience.

Ball’s good intentions are echoed by Premier Andrew Furey who seems content if a deal is done by November though he has no proof such an outcome is assured.

By then, Ottawa will have forgotten – again - that this place exists.