All around in circles 2 #nlpoli

December 17 is an auspicious day in Muskrat Falls history.

That was the date in 2012 when Kathy Dunderdale stood in front of a group of cheering supporters of the ludicrous megaproject and proclaimed that the government had formally approved its construction.

“It all begins here!” she shouted to the overjoyed throng. ““It all begins now!”

It didn’t start there of course.

Kathy had stood with Danny Williams two years earlier - 18 November to be precise - and announced a deal to build Muskrat Falls, the project the media hailed as the fulfillment of a dream to build the Lower Churchill and break the stranglehold Quebec had over our province.

That was a lie, to be sure. 

But still the reporters parroted Williams’ and Dunderdale’s lines just as they had 18 months before that - in April 2009 - when Williams said a deal to sell Churchill Falls electricity to Emera through Quebec had broken the stranglehold.

Arguably, though, Muskrat Falls started in May 2006 when Williams announced the province would go it alone to build the Lower Churchill.

The Clerk of the Executive Council at the time emailed the finance deputy minister and asked if anyone had checked with the deputy to see if the province could afford it.  He got no reply.

In April 2010, when a gaggle of politicians, bureaucrats, and Nalcor thugs decided to go ahead with Muskrat Falls first, they figured the local ratepayers and taxpayers would foot the entire bill out of their electricity rates.

By November 2010, when Williams announced the crowning achievement of his career, the cost of the project had grown to the point that the impact on electricity prices would make people unhappy.  SRBP pointed out at the time the price would double from what it then was. 

And so the Muskrateers started to figure ways to lower the sticker shock – mitigate the initial rates.

Every single Premier since Danny Williams has promised to mitigate the project’s impact on rates.

On December 17, 2020, eight years to the day after Dunderdale whooped it up, Premier Andrew Furey became the latest one to promise rate mitigation.

Interesting news, buried under bull #nlpoli

There are two aspects to Monday’s announcement about Muskrat Falls and electricity rates:  political and practical items related to Muskrat Falls.  

Another set of decisions are actually related to the provincial government’s non-Muskrat Falls finances.

And then there’s a little tidbit about how far behind Muskrat Falls is.

Political - If this is how Dwight treats his friends…

Monday’s announcement was a political stunt pulled purely for the province's benefit apparently to cover over the fact that there was no agreement as Dwight Ball had promised before Christmas.

The announcement came front-end-loaded with the sort of ego stroking and puffery that is not merely unnecessary but tends to turn off audiences listening for a major announcement about arguably the most pressing public issue.

The Rate Mitigation Circus of Horrors #nlpoli

Late Friday evening, the Muskrat Falls rate mitigation circus came to town.

Again.

Around 7:40 PM, long after everyone with sense had gone home for the day, natural resources minister Siobhan Coady released the last report from the Public Utilities Board review that started in 2018.

As expected, it told us nothing more than what we already knew.

That didn't stop people from getting upset, yet again, at the prospect of electricity rates twice what they are currently paying if no one does anything about it.

We got this reminder because the charter Dwight Ball gave the PUB was to repeat precisely what Ball knew his officials had already done in 2017.

It was like another pathetic re-run of the ploy from 2011 when Kathy Dunderdale – just as jammed up then as Dwight Ball was in 2018 – asked the PUB to look at Muskrat Falls using all the same assumptions and limitations that led the government to endorse the project in the first place.

In this case, Ball was in a pickle – and likely a rage - because he and his star by-election candidate at the time stood in front of a crowd during a by-election, promised everyone they wouldn’t have to pay for Muskrat Falls,  and then watched everyone burst out laughing since the two obviously had no idea what they were talking about.

So, someone in the political back room came up with the novel idea of bringing the PUB in to repeat exactly what the officials had already done.  When something works the first time, it is always smart to do it again. /sarcasmfont

You cannot make this shit up.

So here we are on Monday morning, precisely where we were before.

A mouthful of burp #nlpoli

Not one mitigation scheme.

Not two mitigation schemes.

Three mitigation schemes.

Delivered by the end of January.

All wonderful grand and all believable if you have had the sense knocked out of you by the endless string of promises Dwight Ball has made about mitigating the impact of Muskrat Falls on electricity rates.

Promises made but not kept.

Restoring Power: The Section 92A Option #nlpoli

One of the potentially most valuable revenue sources would be a new tax on electricity production that could yield upwards of $450 million a year. The bulk of the tax would be paid by Emera and Hydro-Quebec, both of which currently profit from free or near-free electricity through two patently unfair agreements. 

The basic problem of the Lower Churchill was always how to pay for it. 

Everyone who tried to build it before wanted people outside the province to use the electricity and pay for the whole project, with the profit flowing to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.  When they couldn't get that to work, they simply didn't pursue the project. 

The politicians and bureaucrats behind what became Muskrat Falls were smarter.  They decided in a meeting at The Rooms in April 2010 they would force the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to pay for the entire project through their electricity rates, even though they would use very little of it. The benefits would flow outside Newfoundland and Labrador. 

The Dwight Ball-Ches Crosbie rate mitigation scheme is still about having Newfoundlanders and Labradorians alone pay for Muskrat Falls with others reaping the benefit.  On top of that, the Ball-Crosbie approach includes money that doesn’t exist.  Their scheme also doesn’t address other problems with Muskrat Falls that are as troublesome as the problem of the government’s proposed scheme to have only one small group of people bear the whole cost.  So, it won't work.