Policy is people #nlpoli

Kim Keating is a member of the newly-appointed council to advise the provincial government on oil and gas issues.

She's a professional engineer,  a senior official with a local company in the oil and gas business, and in the recent past she was the president of the St. John's Board of Trade the year that the Board wholeheartedly endorsed Muskrat Falls.

That's important because the Board not only endorsed Muskrat Falls for all the benefits that flowed to companies like the one Keating works for, but also because the Board was willing to trade away free enterprise in order to get those juicy business goodies. A key element of making Muskrat Falls work was the creation of a monopoly for Nalcor so that the company could force local consumers - and local businesses - to pay whatever it would take to satisfy Nalcor's creditors.

In other words, no matter how high the price for the project went,  local consumers would be stuck with the costs. Keating and her associates were okay with that.

But there's more to the issue than that.