Story: Ahead of Quebec premier’s visit, provincial panel recommends new Churchill Falls deal
The notion that Quebec will change this deal one minute before 2041 is laughable. Quebec locked in a fixed price, with no escalator clause for inflation, in the early 1970s. And then they were able to extend it until 2041, despite Newfoundland’s protests to the Supreme Court of Canada, which backed Quebec. It is perhaps the most lopsided, unfair deal in Canadian history. Quebec gets rich, Newfoundland starves.
Churchill Falls Hydroelectric Generating Facility, with 5,428 megawatts capacity, has more power generating capacity than the entire province of Saskatchewan, combined, if every single coal and gas turbine, every wind turbine are running at 100%, and every solar panel is entirely lit at noon. If Newfoundland actually got a fair deal from its power sales over 50 years ago, it would not have been a have-not province for the last five decades. However, numerous court cases, up to the Supreme Court of Canada, have locked Newfoundland into the deal until 2041, selling power to Hydro Quebec for $2 per megawatt-hour. In New York (which buys power from Hydro Quebec), “Higher fuel costs have led to higher average wholesale electricity prices as well. In February 2022, the average year-to-date wholesale electricity cost was $118.36/Megawatt-hour (MWh), according to NYISO data.” Where do you think they buy wholesale power from?
Canada as a whole gets screwed every day by Quebec. Why should Newfoundland be any different?
Newfoundland could have started drilling off of its shores ages ago.
They let China do that instead.
Newfoundland screwed itself.
Every single province does the same.
Just a couple years ago, AB was whining that fed regs stopped a big foreign investor in the oils sands, meanwhile the investment was just a bit smaller than what AB spends on “diversity”, ie AB had enough money to fund it themselves.
The left, while evil, is coherent.
The right isn’t in any way coherent, they’ll decry foreign investment from one side of their mouth while singing its praises from the other.
What does Alberta spend on diversity?
Show us the money hiho
Albertans wanting free stuff now.
Do your own research.
It’s true. It is surely one of Canada’s most enduring myths that Alberta is conservative. We may well see this proven yet again if Danielle is beaten by Naughtly (sic) — a very real possibility.
Seems everybody knows that the con/lib divide is urban/rural, except the Albertans.
Maybe they should stop voting in the lieberals. I don’t feel sorry for them. We are all screwed by Quebec.
Turn off and mothball any hydroelectric turbine generators in excess of the provincial needs.
Be a shame if a maintenance inspection dragged out.
I mean the turbine blades could be defective.
And replacement blades would have to be sourced from green sources which also had approved diverse work forces that all made pronoun declarations (in English, French, and one First Nations language).
Of course several years of consultation would be required from First Nations to select an approve the proper pronouns.
rd – I am sure Danny Williams thought of that. That’s why he started Muskrat falls to have an alternative source of hydro income although the cost ran way over.
The solution may be to add a 500% carbon and indigenous land claim tax to Churchill falls that expires in 2041.
Newfoundland should get the power to the island and sell it for next to nothing on 20 year contracts to aluminum smelters and any manufacturers. If you can’t get the power to the island, make Goose Bay an industrial powerhouse. It is a seaport for at least half the year. Do not sell one watt to Quebec. Use the power to turn around the shithole economy for good.
Newfoundland is slowly moving in the right direction.
They have a line running to the island. And they’re building a big line from the island to Nova Scotia. By-pass Quebec completely.
The “national pass time” in Quebec politics is to screw the ROC. I’ll bet there isn’t an empathetic or guilty thought for a nanosecond about taking the economically weakest “Anglo” province to the cleaners. In Canada, Quebec rules.
It may be telling that Anglos left Quebec faster and in bigger numbers than Whites left South Africa.
And a few companies attracted a lot of ire for moving out, Sun Life for example, but one that was more surreptitious was the Bank of Montreal. When they changed their sign to a stylized M with a horizontal line below it was actually in preparation for their plan to change their name to “First Canadian Bank”. The sign was square and if rotated 90 degrees becomes I B. First Canadian Place was another planned change but I guess BEEMO became their final decision.
Beemo, sounds Creole, for all our diverse Bros n Sistaas.
Sounds like will achieve betta
Don’t forget when it comes to being a have or have not province None of the hydro power sales Quebec sells, goes into the formula allowing them to collect billions in transfer payments from Western Canada
Rex – That sounds like business as usual in Canada but where do I go to find the rules for transfer payments?
Even so, from what I’ve seen when I have gone to Quebec, the benefits Quebec gets from our government that are not publicized far outweigh the cash grab from transfer payments.
NF is getting screwed, but they keep voting Liberal, being a drunk, lazy, inbred idiot has consequences.
Ahh, time for the standard 2-minutes hate here at SDA.
Another case of Quebec=smart, TROC=brain-dead bimbo.
TROC likes it hard.
From my honest perspective as a french Canadian. During the construction and financing of Churchill falls we (Quebec) offered to share costs but they told us to eff off. We valued electricity more at the time because of Alumineries and such and knew the investment would pay off so we iron clad the contract.
It would be like BC or QC not allowing AB / SK pipelines …
Ha…my father was hydro-electric engineer on this project.
A political cluster-fluck as ever…
But if the lights, and your computer switch on, you can thank my dad, who is now polishing his halo.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st St Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Gee, one provincial government screwed another provincial government on a deal?
Too bad so sad, maybe consider PRIVATIZING the power generation sector, then private companies can screw each other instead.
The one nice thing about private companies run by stupid people is they go bankrupt. Provinces run by stupid people never do, they just raise taxes.
Are we learning yet, Lefties?
” Quebec gets rich, Newfoundland starves.”
People are starving in NF?
Of course, who invested the money for the plant, who owns it, etc, doesn’t matter, because of all that filthy lucre. “ITS NOT FAIR!!! WAHHH!!!” Forget the wages being earned by the locals, the taxes being thrown into NF’s coffers, forget about contracts, NF should just “appropriate” said plant, right Brian?
This is exactly the same kind of BS commie screed spouted by Maduro.
Let’s just change this around a bit:
“Exxon et al. gets rich, Venezuela starves.”
Congrats, Brian, on being Maduro North.
The dam? Newfoundland already owns most of it.
The power line to export markets? Quebec owns that.
Joey Smallwood sure was stupid.
K-bec’s manifest destiny is to cornhole every soul who doesn’t live in K-bec.
They don’t believe in fair trade.
They believe they are better than everybody else.
Especially Newfoundlanders.
Newfoundlanders not only talk funny, but walk funny from taking it up the chute.
The Newfoundland capital should be renamed Bendover, because they do it willingly.
Canadians are the stupidest people I know, but I don’t get out much.
Arty, you must be Canadian to say that. Right?
Got to be as he is echoing me.
Provinces continually trying to screw one-another over for some tiny advantage or closed concessions is why Canada is a country, but not really a nation.
I think NL should ride this contract out to 2041, then settle for nothing less than the then wholesale rate + annually adjusted inflation in terms of not more than 5 years. Negotiating now, only rewards Quebec.
When those in Quebec or Ottawa complain, NL can then point to the shitheads at the SCOC and state with a clear conscience, “with friends like these….” and they can either mothball the plant, or have Quebec brought to the table with outside negotiators, then point to the past 7 decades of a lopsided deal while refusing to play ball. The SCOC isn’t going to impose a contract after refusing to allow NL to renegotiate a poor deal for 7 decades. Not without NL telling the SCOC to lick them where they poop.
If Churchill Falls is mothballed even temporarily, the income NL forgoes is minimal. When power exports resume, they can savour the rewards.
and…
NL could dangle the prospect of exporting power directly to the USA via N.S. and N.B. It’s almost 100 miles of under sea cable, but it’s not nearly the longest in the world now. The long term goal of being free from Quebec would be theirs…
https://www.tdworld.com/overhead-transmission/article/20956052/norned-the-longest-electricity-cable-in-the-world-is-operational
The gains from these power exports are far greater than the cable cost.
By-pass Quebec completely.
That’s the only way.
Quebec can pay retail if they want Churchill power (after 2041 that is).
The one who screwed NL the worst was the Liberal Premier Joey Smallwood.
Ottawa and London were terrified, because the majority of Newfoundlanders wanted to join America at the end of the war. The 1948 vote was so close that Liberal Smallwood had the ballots burned before there could be a recount. It was that close.
Much like Ottawa and Chretien using 300M stole ADSCAM plus tax dollars bought the Quebec Union votes to narrowly sway the Quebec Independence vote.
Newfoundland’s enemy has always been Ottawa and Liberals.
http://suffragio.org/2015/07/22/the-lessons-of-newfoundlands-1948-referendum/
Here’s a thought experiment:
Imagine a situation where Quebec was severely, economically disadvantaged in a one sided deal, what would there eventual response be?
An Anglo friend of mine who does business in Quebec has noticed the workforce culture leans toward agitation and rebellion. I wonder if these characteristics translate to the broader culture?
In this situation, I can imagine a takeover of Churchill Falls, which I do not condone, but I can imagine Quebec doing it.
And I can imagine taking up arms with Newfoundlanders if they manned up and asked for help.
When the Ontario Government got a court decision,that the current government could indeed break deals made by the past government,I thought this was settled.
No government contract is worth the paper it was printed on.
In other words a legal contract in which a Provincial Government was a party,was worth as much as the promises made by those booted from office..
As valuable as a politicians sworn promise,or testimony under oath.
So why can Ontario break contracts,but Newfoundland cannot?
Because this dam and the lines are owned by Crown Corporations, both in Quebec and Newfoundland. They are a legal step away from the actual government. Standard contract law applies to these entities.
I have family on the rock. There is nothing but cowardice and stupidity in canada. PROVE ME F***ING WRONG.
Shut down Churchill Falls for a lengthy environmental assessment.
Exactly. If it’s that rotten a deal, do something about it instead of whining.
+++Gary
“ If Newfoundland actually got a fair deal from its power sales over 50 years ago, it would not have been a have-not province for the last five decades”
Sometimes a dependency can be a hard thing to break.
Saudis, Qataris, Emiratis, and Kuwaitis seem to live pretty damn large on the Energy Product (oil) sales!