Two days later, Premier Kathy Dunderdale didn't stand in the House of Assembly and deliver a ministerial statement laying out the government's response. Instead, she waited until the opposition parties asked her questions about it.
Dunderdale said she'd now hold a debate in the House of Assembly. Her exact words delivered somewhere around 2:00 PM:
When all of that information is in the public purview, Mr. Speaker, which we expect will not be until probably the end of June, we will call the House together for a full debate in case the House is not sitting at that time.At 2:40 PM, her office issued a news release that purported to give government's official response to the PUB report. The thrust of the release is that the provincial government is ploughing ahead to project sanction, otherwise known as Decision Gate 3:
The next steps will involve analysis of Decision Gate 3 information – the most up-to-date information on load forecast, fuel price forecast, defined capital costs, and system integrated studies.Damn the torpedoes! You can hear the Premier delivering those stirring words, shouting them over the great din in cabinet caused by the gnashing of teeth about the PUB. Full speed ahead! she cried in order to encourage her staff on in the face of growing adversity.
And the debate in the legislature? Well, in the news release the "Provincial Government is prepared to have a special debate in the House of Assembly...". Gone from "will call the House" to "is prepared" all in the space of a half hour or so.
Yeah.
Maybe less Farragut and more Cardigan.
Half a league, half a league, half a league onward all in the valley of Muskrat rode the six hundred, or in Kathy's version, the 20 or 30.
Yes.
That's more like it.
The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade.
- srbp -