“The oil industry success we enjoy today is not what many expected… many people could not believe in the vision of Newfoundland and Labrador as a successful oil producing province.”
Whoever wrote those words for Kathy Dunderdale to read at the re-announcement of the Hibernia South project could hardly know the truth of them.
Nor could the writer likely understand how close to home some of those negative nellies were.
As managing editor of the Telegram in 1992, Bill Callahan believed the project was best scrapped since it represented “large-scale exploitation of non-renewable petroleum resources without adequate or perhaps any return.”
Then there was Peter Fenwick. The former New Democratic Party leader lambasted Hibernia in 1992 as a “give away”:
The money we taxpayers are throwing away on Hibernia is equal to a hundred Sprung greenhouses. In future, Brian Peckford, Clyde Wells and Rex Gibbons will be vilified by generations of Newfoundlanders for the enormous waste of taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately we, and the rest of Canada will be stuck with paying for it with our tax dollars.
None, though, could match the pessimism, negativity and sheer crap about Hibernia coming from none other than Wade Locke.
Yes, that’s right: Wade Locke, the same Memorial University economist who is the darling of the current provincial government administration and who was, it should be said, looked on rather favourably by their Tory forefathers in their day too.
As Locke told The Telegram’s Pat Doyle in September 1990, only a few days before Wells, Gibbons, John Crosbie and others signed the final agreements in St. John’s that started the Hibernia project rolling:
"While it may be true that the sun will shine one day, it does not appear that 'have-not' will be no more because of Hibernia."
Those words by Wade Locke, an assistant professor of economics at Memorial University, appear to sum up the realistic view now held by experienced observers on the potential benefits of the large offshore project.
But that wasn’t all.
Locke was extremely pessimistic about the revenue likely to come from the project:
"That is, each dollar of offshore oil revenue going to the provincial treasury will result in an increase in the province's ability to spend by two to three cents," Mr. Locke said.
Provincial government estimates suggest the equalization payments would fall by somewhere in the range of 90 to 95 cents.
Mr. Locke said using his calculations, if the project were to generate 13.8 billion In direct revenue for the treasury, for example, after adjusting for equalization losses and equalization offset grants, the province's net fiscal position would have changed between 176 million and $114 million over the life of the project or an average of $3 million to $4 million in net revenue a year over the 26-year project.
To put that in perspective, Mr. Locke noted the province expects to spend $3.3 billion In the current fiscal year.
“This means that the average net revenue from Hibernia is equivalent to about one tenth of one per cent of the 1990 projected government expenditure,” said [Locke in] the paper [printed in the Newfoundland Quarterly.]
"Thus, one should not expect that the provincial government will, as a result of Hibernia, have an enhanced ability to improve our road system, education services, health services or any other government services that are of primary concern to the average Newfoundlander."
Yes, when you read stuff like that you just have to chuckle at all the Kreskins who took turns peeing all over the Hibernia project. Heck even Dunderdale and her boss used to refer to it as a massive give-away. Used to, that is, until they used the deal as the basis for their own negotiations over the extension project. The old Hibernia deal actually delivers the largest bulk of the cash they claim will come from the extension. Honesty would prevent Dunderdale and her crowd from doing anything but acknowledging the old deal for its value.
Meanwhile Locke now gets invited to speak in glowing terms about the great offshore oil industry at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the deal on which it is all based: the 1985 Atlantic Accord.
And that original Hibernia deal they all loved to hate?
Well, based on the same numbers used by the provincial government and quoted by CBC in the supper-hour news tonight, that 1990 deal will produce more money for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador than Hebron, the White Rose extension and Hibernia South combined.
And it exists today, unlike the Lower Churchill dams or mythical aluminum smelters drawing power from them.
The billions coming from Hibernia will continue for more than another decade to pay for road improvements, education services, health services and any other government services that are of primary concerns to ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
The money from Hibernia has helped wean Newfoundland and Labrador from its financial dependence on hand-outs from Ottawa. The dignity and self-respect that comes from that accomplishment alone was worth the gamble. The only people who seem to lament that fundamental change in the province and its people are those who never did - deep in their hearts - look forward to the day when the hand-outs stopped. How laughable that some of those people get credit for a change they fought against.
The creation of a new industry and the transformation of a people.
That’s not too bad for a project whose benefits an expert told us were overestimated.
-srbp-