The 17th annual bilateral (U.S.-Canada) conference on energy issues is taking place in Boston this Thursday and Friday.
The conference theme is North American Energy: Forging Ahead in the Current Economic and Environmental Climate.
Everyone who is anyone in energy issues on the northeast of the continent will be there as a sponsor and on the program.
Except the scrappy little energy company that Danny Williams would like to flip some day.
That’s right.
NALCOR Energy is nowhere to be seen.
All the big players are there as platinum level sponsors.
Newfoundland and Labrador is being represented by the provincial government which booked in for the second cheapest sponsorship level ($1500).
And the Newfoundland and Labrador representative on the program is none other than than…
Nope.
Not the Premier.
Jean Charest is a keynote speaker, though.
Nope.
Not Ed Martin.
Not even Kathy Dunderdale.
There’s only Wes Foote, an assistant deputy minister in the natural resources department.
And he’s not even an electricity guy.
Wes is the oil ADM.
If you really want to develop the supposed energy hub of North America surely goodness you’d be out there marketing the heck out of the oil, gas and electricity opportunities in Newfoundland and Labrador at a conference where all the people who matter are showing up.
And you’d be using the state-owned energy monopoly to do it.
But NALCOR isn’t there at all in a prominent spot.
What gives?
-srbp-