Some tough negotiations between Quebec and Newfoundland on Thursday, as the wholly lopsided Churchill Falls hydroelectricity deal may be reopened. Currently Newfoundland is getting paid 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour, and Quebec sells it for 41x that same power. And it will do so until 2041, unless something comes of these negotiations.
Another example of a form of “equalization” paid to the grifter province of Quebec off the back of another province. Maybe we should kick Quebec out of Canada….they can join the EU. And Comrade Trudeau can go with them.
Good idea
In 2041 K-bec can get 41X less than Newfoundland.
Froggy knows this. 18 years from now he gets zero cents on the dollar. He’s motivated to get a deal done hoping that the newfies will look kindly on him down the road.
The newfs on the other hand are broke. The feds had to step in last year in order to make payroll or the civil service wouldn’t have got paid.
Expect a ‘Canadian’ solution. Froggie gets paid off by the rest of Canada. He’ll probably come out ahead. The newfies will agree to anything because they are not in a position to dictate anything close to terms.
Bend over Canada….
“The feds had to step in last year in order to make payroll or the civil service wouldn’t have got paid.”
Wake me up for the bad news.
There is a giant firehouse of cash pointed at Quebec. It’s won’t be turned down, not a dollar.
Nothing will come from negotiations.
Whomever agreed to $.02/kwh had his head up his ASS.
Ludicrous beyond all
.15/kwh is where it should have been..or something like that
It was about as much a “negotiation” as equalization is.
0.2 cents as quoted is $0.002
Like stores that post 0.05 cents per bag, I throw a penny at them and demand 20 as advertised.
“Whomever agreed to $.02/kwh had his head up his ASS”
Joey Smallwood. Liberal – head up his ass and still a big echo. If my name was Small Wood, I would seriously consider changing it. Hi! My name is Mr. Hugewood.
Do a Putin, turn it off. See how fast they come back to the table.
You mean a Biden. You don’t blow up something when turning a tap is all that is required.
“Hydro-Québec will maintain its 34.2 per cent share of Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corp. when the contract expires in 2041.”
So they will be in a minority position after 2041.
But Newfoundland still has to transport the power to markets and the transmission lines cross Quebec.
Quebec is only being nice now because they will have a much weaker negociating position in 18 years…
… but a lot can happen in 18 years…
Buy out Hydro-Quebec’s share based on fair market value at .2 cents per kw hr. Today. Get them out.
The same with resources/commodities being sold from Alberta and Saskatchewan at below market value. The only ones paying retail prices are the consumers in said provinces!
We should be like Alaska and be getting royalty cheques, while enjoying low prices at the pumps and on our utilities bills, while enjoying excellent roads and infrastructure.. (Ever see the state of roads and bridges in Quebec?)
Instead, they are going to continue pushing electric as the sole option for transportation and we will be a captive audience, with no options like gasoline/diesel/hybrid/other, all the fueling stations will have been removed and spots at fast charging stations will be hard to come by and replacement batteries in high demand, while the roads and bridges deteriorate from lack of funding, because no one thought that far ahead and they will come up with yet another tax scheme to fund it.
Imagine all the extra, extra charges on your energy bills, as if there aren’t already enough!
(Fixed rate fee, variable rate fee, delivery fee, rate riders, transmission fees, balancing fees, access charges and the biggest scams; CARBON TAX and GST charged on ALL mentioned fees!)
After all that, hopefully you have enough shekels left in your digital bank account and enough charge in your car, you can afford to stop for a cricket burger at the McYakShack in your 15 minute city..
Zon, I liked your comment. I would have like it more if it had been broken up into a few paragraphs. 😉
Thanks, D.B., I do tend to carry on, sometimes! I was just trying to save storage space and for the mobile readers, yeah that’s it.. 🙂
I get it, you were on a roll!
Signed in 1969, the contract provided for the sale to Hydro-Québec of approximately 31 billion kilowatt hours per year for a term of 40 years. During those 40 years the price would be approximately 3 mills (3 tenths of a cent) per kilowatt-hour for the first 5 years and then decline in stages until it becomes approximately 2.5 mills for the last 15 years. Thereafter, with the expiry of the contract’s term, the contract provided for automatic renewal of the contract for a further 25 years at a lower price of 2 mills.
This deal was negotiated by the Smallwood government. One of the major problems was that while the Newfies owned the resource, they had to cross Quebec to get it to the market. They investigated an undersea cable solution to skirt Quebec, but it wasn’t deemed feasible.
Speaking of undersea cables: is one still being built to bring the electricity from Muskrat Falls on the Lower Churchill River to the island of Newfoundland and then on to Nova Scotia?
Under sea electrical cables have come a long way since the late 60’s.
I understand the project wouldn’t have been built if not for Quebec having this slice of the N.L.’s future being sold at the discount.
Supplying the US market with power via 100 miles of undersea cable (20 from Labrador to NFLD and another 80 from NFLD to N.S.) is a better idea than negotiating another lopsided deal.
If NL had the balls, they’d nationalize the project at the current value of electrical power being sold to Quebec (not very much at all !), and stamp the “notwithstanding clause” on all of the legislation if need be, and then export the power themselves. If Quebec finds it needs power from N.L. they can compete at auction with NY State. Good luck with that.
There’s no reason for N.L. to be begging to Canada with this resource at hand, and no reason to accept that a lowball increase in power rates will be good enough, nor to be forever known as the “retarded cousin” of Canada, exporting workers to the actual producing provinces where they can make a decent living…
The SCOC and a couple of different #Librano governments played a role in screwing this up. There’s no reason they should be consulted in the future.
N.L. has 18 years to figure it out before it all hits the fan.
The Premier, and the gov’t which can deliver this gold to N.L. will be re-elected for decades…
From the Globe and Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-why-the-curse-of-churchill-falls-will-continue-to-haunt-newfoundland/ “Without Quebec, Churchill Falls would never have been built. Newfoundland had no use for the power at the time. Hydro-Québec put up nearly half the initial capital for the project, and CFLCo the rest. The company then leveraged its contract with Hydro-Québec to borrow the rest.
As the Supreme Court pointed out in its decision, the contract was specifically structured “to have Hydro-Québec assume a risk that CFLCo did not want to assume.” The low fixed price and the long term were Hydro-Québec’s compensation for taking on that risk, the court concluded.”
Let’s face it, if it had been led by the Newfoundland government, it would almost surely have ended up like Muskrat Falls, whose construction has been a complete disaster.
If only, if only, if only… Hindsight is a cop-out. Perhaps we could ask ourselves why the parties signed the contract in 1969 anyway. Read up on the history. The men involved on both sides knew exactly what they were doing and what the implications were.
Sounds like colonization, better do reparations.
A $2.2 billion lawsuit has just been filed.
“A Quebec Innu community is suing Hydro-Québec for $2.2-billion, claiming the Churchill Falls hydroelectric station has destroyed a significant part of its traditional territory.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/9433048/innu-hydro-quebec-churchill-falls-lawsuit/
This follows a $4.4 billion lawsuit filed in 2020 by a different group:
“In 2020, the Innu Nation of Labrador similarly sued Hydro-Québec and Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation Ltd. for $4 billion in compensation for the ecological and cultural damage caused by the damming of the upper Churchill River in the early 1970s.”
Don’t forget that this money that quebec gets doesn’t count as revenue for the purposed of “equalization”
I don’t think the politicians in Nefoundland are that smart. It is apparent governments can impose any tax they wish. I would say .30 per kilowatt environmental destruction tax for every kilowatt leaving the province would be fair. And if the don’t want to pay ,then cut it off. They are only going to lose 2 cents.