Quebec natural resources minister and deputy premier Nathalie Normadeau says Hydro Quebec isn’t interested in renegotiating the 1969 Churchill Falls power contract.
Okay, so like no one saw that coming.
And it’s not like Danny Williams can blame anyone in this province for feeding sooper sekrit information to the bad guys in Quebec. He just said that to avoid answering simple questions and - almost naturally – local media gave the unfounded comments top billing.
All for a load of shop-worn hooey.
In the meantime, as the Premier indicated in the legislature on Tuesday, Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation got its own legal opinion before sending the request to renegotiate off to Hydro-Quebec.
And, as he told the House of Assembly on Monday,
As a result, we feel that we need to pursue this and the best way to pursue this is in good faith. The best way to pursue good faith is to have this information [the conclusions of the provincial government’s legal review] passed over to CF(L)Co. It is my understanding that CF(L)Co have announced today that president, Ed Martin, has now written the other shareholders of CF(L)Co to see whether, in fact, in good faith, this matter would be open for renegotiation, and that is a very good thing.
Did you notice that phrase: “other shareholders in CF(L)Co.”
That would be Hydro-Quebec.
So if Danny Williams is wondering about who is passing sooper sekrits to the enemy, he can look no further than Ed Martin.
Of course, the entire traitor line is just one to distract from what is really going on: a big bluff.
After all, if NALCOR and the provincial government were really convinced they could cut a deal, if they really thought they had stumbled on the magic bullet to cure a 40 year old grievance, they’d never have done it in public perhaps before the letter to Hydro Quebec even got to Montreal.
Nope.
If you had any leverage at all, you wouldn’t pull a stunt.
You’d pull the lever.
-srbp-