The Churchill River has been a great source of contention in this province over the past many years, to this day many people call the Upper Churchill deal the biggest giveaway in the province's history and a deal that leads many people to be against Joey Smallwood. Why should Quebec get its power much cheaper than we do? Especially when some of their power comes from the Upper Churchill river, a river that should be benefiting this province first and foremost not Quebec.
We where determined to not make the same mistake with the Lower Churchill, I know many governments after Smallwood's wanted to develop it as to cover up for the mistake that was the Upper Churchill river. I remember 2002 Roger Grimes having a deal ready to go and had a TV spot recorded but Premier Williams caught wind of it and held a big rally in St.John's to thwart the deal, when you add to the fact that many members of Grimes' caucus where against this deal you knew it had a poor chance of going ahead.
Fast forward a few years, throughout Danny Williams' premiership 1 thing you knew probably would happen would be a deal to develop the Lower Churchill. If there ever was a chance for this deal to get done it would occur under a premier who's mantra was the full development of the province's resources to the full benefit of the people of this province, if Danny Williams could get a deal done he would.
In November 2010 the province was a buzz on the 18th as Premier Williams announced that he had reached a deal to develop the Lower Churchill, the government of Nova Scotia would be a partner to help get the deal done, a lot of people where happy with the deal and said what a great deal this was. I've often said the Lower Churchill could do more for this province than any oil field.
I think the skepticism of the deal began a week later when Danny Williams announced his resignation. With all due respect to Premier Dunderdale and Minister Kennedy who have done an admirable job defending this project, there was something about what Premier Williams could do and say to put something over that would make people like this deal.
So over the past year and a half we have heard the pros and cons behind this deal, the pros include that it will help stabilize power rates, it will create jobs, it will improve the provincial coffers in the post-oil Newfoundland and Labrador which will come, the cons are that it is going to cost a lot to develop the project, that there is very little information about this project out there and that there may be other and better options out there.
So that brings us to today's announcement and yes it may be a step back but I'm glad to see government is not giving up on this. We are now going to see a debate in the House of Assembly (Which should have occurred during the winter of 2010 as soon as the deal was announced) and I hope that all 48 MHA's speak up and talk about this project, also I hope that the government goes on a speaking tour of this deal during the summer, this is a deal that is going to be beneficial for this province's future, let's not do this deal wrong as we tended to do prior to Danny William's premiership.
It was also good to see in light of today's announcement that government will look at other options for power development in this province including natural gas and wind power. Government is being responsible here in my opinion and I hope that they do the right deal for this province and not a deal for the sake of doing one. Jerome Kennedy, the minister in charge here, is pretty competent and I think he knows this is a good deal, it just got a small bump in the road today.
In closing this is a good deal for this province, I hope it gets the go ahead but only when everything is studied and we have the full debate in the House of Assembly, all of which look to be occurring so good move today by the government.
The author appreciates any and all comments on this blog, he can be reached via email at tducey1@gmail.com.
