During my two years of review of Muskrat
Falls, I have often asked myself what future generations will think of the
project. What will be public perception
of the engineering, the economics and most importantly the political debate
which surrounded it?
In an era when blogs, newspaper
articles, and VOCM call-in programs are all recorded for posterity, how will future
generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians view the leaders of today? In particular, what will they say about the
execution of their responsibility to safeguard the interests of the tax
payers?
Will the critics including Vardy,
Penney, Martin, Sullivan, and Hollett be viewed as fear mongers, visionaries or
simply as democrats? On what side of
history will they lie?
Despite all assurances from the experts,
time will produce a final arbiter of the economic merit of the project. The final construction costs, combined with the future
world price of energy, and the power demands of the Province will constitute
the most quantitative parts of that evaluation.
Even though future success will silence
the legacy of the present day critics, I am certain that future political
scientists will study how our democratic institutions were tempered, in order
for the project to proceed.
In the 21st century, when other Western
democracies strived to increase transparency, public engagement and political accountability,
Newfoundland and Labrador went against the grain. Under any unbiased examination, the
democratic legacy of Muskrat Falls will certainly fall upon the wrong side of
history.
It would not be fair to place the blame
solely on the current Progressive Conservative government. When the previous Liberal administration excluded the Lower Churchill Project from the purview of the Public Utilities Board, in
2000,
a slippery slope began to take
shape. It was the beginning of a process
of excluding the project from normal democratic controls. That process was key to ensuring transparency
and accountability in the expenditure of public funds.
