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Opposition calls Lower Churchill MOU an election gimmick
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Yvonne Jones, MHA for the District of Cartwright-L=Anse au Clair, and Liberal Opposition Critic for the Department of Natural Resources says today=s announcement that the provincial government has signed a MOU with the state of Rhode Island for the possible purchase of Lower Churchill power amounts to nothing more than a meaningless pre-election ploy. Jones was reacting to the news that the two jurisdictions had entered into an understanding to explore the merits of exporting hydro power from this province to the New England state. The discussion will involve the potential power purchase of only up to 200 megawatts of electricity by the year 2015. AThis announcement is the cheapest form of election gimmickery and for this government to sell it as anything more is an absolute insult to the people of this province,@ says Jones. ATo begin with, we do not even have 200 megawatts of power to sell and the only way to get it is to develop the Lower Churchill. Basing this MOU on the strength of potentially selling 200 megawatts of electricity is not at all wise.@ Jones points to many outstanding issues relating to the Lower Churchill project that have yet to be resolved before any headway is made with actually developing the project, which is tagged at close to $9 billion. AThe planning process for this project is still very much in the very earlier stages. There are still studies ongoing with Quebec, negotiations have not been settled with the Innu Nation and the Metis of Labrador, a transmission route has not been decided, finances have not been put into place, an Environmental Impact Statement has not yet been filed and there are no power purchase agreements in place. AThere is still an incredible amount of detailed information yet to be obtained, evaluated and presented to the people. For this government to jump out ahead with such a meaningless announcement when there are still so many unanswered questions and the absence of an Energy Plan simply exposes a government looking for some cheap election bait. This is an obvious attempt to pull the wool over people=s eyes as government heads into campaign mode and should not be viewed as anything more.@
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