Adios John Hickey, the Pavement Putin of the Permafrost.
The ever-troublesome labradore offered a fitting tribute to Hickey as leaves politics.
The staunch defender of the Muskrat Falls megadebt project won’t like people being reminded of his position a decade ago when another Premier had a better deal, at least as far as the taxpayers of the province would be concerned.
labradore offers a copy of the letter then-Goose Bay mayor John Hickey sent to then-Premier Roger Grimes conveying the position of the town council on Grimes’ potential deal.
Among Council’s reasons for rejecting the development of Gull Island and Muskrat Falls together without saddling the province with massive debt, jacking up domestic electricity prices and shipping discount power to people outside Newfoundland and Labrador?
For starters, they wanted a written guarantee 500 megawatts of power would be available for development in Labrador. In the Muskrat Falls plan, there is no written guarantee and the thing won’t produce enough power to ship to Nova Scotia for free, to the island and still give Hickey 500 megs for Labrador. It’s not possible.
Then they wanted direct industrial development in the Lake Melville region from the project. Again, the Muskrat Falls project offers exactly nada on that one.
Lastly, Council wanted to make sure that ALCOA would have what he termed a “competitive opportunity” to build a smelter in Labrador.
Again: goose egg.
Wasn’t Leo Abbass a member of Council back then?
Maybe someone should ask him if that 2002 letter still represents his resolute position.
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