Bitter legacy hangs over energy discussions between Quebec and N.L. premiers – Montreal | 24CA News
Quebec Premier François Legault is in St. John’s on Friday for discussions with Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier about what is going to come after a bitterly divisive hydroelectric vitality deal ends in 2041.
Legault faces a Newfoundland and Labrador public scarred by the legacy of two hydroelectric initiatives thought of to be failures for the Atlantic province.
Jeff Webb, a historian at Memorial University, says the hostility from the 1969 Churchill Falls association with Quebec led many in Newfoundland and Labrador to embrace the Muskrat Falls hydroelectricity venture a long time later.
Both, up to now, have been disastrous for Newfoundland and Labrador: the Churchill Falls settlement overwhelmingly advantages Quebec whereas the Muskrat Falls venture is delayed and draining the provincial purse.
Webb says when Muskrat Falls was sanctioned in 2012, it had been developed as a means for Newfoundland and Labrador to chop Quebec’s hydro utility out of its vitality future and handle its personal wants.
Under the Churchill Falls deal, Hydro-Québec should purchase 85 per cent of the facility generated on the Labrador dam at a set charge of simply 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour.
On Wednesday, Legault mentioned Quebec was open to paying extra for the electrical energy generated from Churchill Falls — earlier than 2041 — in change for a “very advantageous” worth for energy when the prevailing settlement ends in 18 years.
