John Collins, who served as finance minister in two Progressive Conservative administrations under Brian Peckford, told the Telegram on Friday that by his rough calculation the average family in Newfoundland and Labrador will pay $1000 per year extra in electricity rates as a result of the Muskrat Falls megaproject.
Collins also said that “ to put another heavy expenditure in is going to get us into trouble.” The story appears in the Saturday edition on page A5 but isn’t available on line.
First elected to the House of Assembly in 1975, John Collins served as finance minister from 1979 to 1985 and as health minister from 1985 until he left politics in 1989.
He told the Telegram that
“even the export of power doesn’t seem to be rendering enough to justify the cost of generating the power. The only benefit to the province seems to be closing down the Holyrood [generating plant], and I think there are other ways of doing that.”
Collins is in favour of connecting the island electricity grid to the mainland, calling such a move an “absolute must for the future.”
Collins also told the Telegram that developing the much larger Gull Island structure would make more sense than Muskrat Falls. Collins referred to the smaller generator connected to the large transmission system as being like “the trappings of an elephant on a flea.”
In a letter to the Telegram that also appeared in the Saturday edition, Collins said that “[t]o date, full public knowledge of important details are sorely lacking, despite (or because of) imprecise, even contradictory, data from official sources.” [round brackets in original]
He then listed a series of questions on everything from financing to consumer electricity rates to the viability of possible alternatives to the expensive hydro megaproject.
- srbp -
2 comments:
Didn't the province acknowledge that power rates would double? That would mean the increase could easily be more than $1000 per year, depending on how big your bill is now. Heck, some people are paying $500 a month now... their bill could double to $1000.
The Lower Churchill term sheet is dead in the water. As the truth comes out, more and more people are going to start asking tough questions... and there is an election bearing down fast. It's an election issue that people understand, and this government will be forced to disown the project.
Geoff:
This plan will double electricity rates (at least), guaranteed.
The provincial government is making the argument that rates will go that high anyway and therefore this is cheaper in the long run. Well, what they've basically done is taken a series of worst-case scenarios and used those as the basis for the decision. They've taken worst-case oil prices and demand growth.
What they haven't done is looked at alternatives based on most likely scenarios.
They also haven't released any detailed information - as Collins pointed out - so people can see for themselves what is going on.
Post a Comment