‘Breaking of gridlock’ between Quebec, N.L. is the envy of former premiers
Global News
The tensions stem from a contract signed in1969, which allowed Quebec to buy hydroelectric power from the Churchill Falls plant in Labrador for just 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour.
Two former premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador say a draft energy agreement signed Thursday with Quebec shattered a political standoff that leaders had been trying to end for decades.
Brian Tobin, a Liberal premier from 1996 to 2000, said the shift in political alignment will be good for the provinces, and for the entire country.
“I think it is a long-awaited breaking of a gridlock in the relationship between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec,” he said in an interview Friday. “I think that this is really important.”
The tensions stem from a contract signed by the two provinces in 1969, which allowed Quebec to buy hydroelectric power from the Churchill Falls plant in Labrador for just 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour. The contract was set to expire in 2041, and there was no allowance for the price to change with the market.
On Thursday, Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey literally tore up a copy of that contract as he sat beside Quebec Premier François Legault in St. John’s, N.L.
They inked a new agreement in principle stipulating that Quebec will pay more, beginning with one cent per kilowatt hour in 2025, and increasing in subsequent years. The province will also shell out an average of $1 billion a year until 2041, with increases to follow, and pay a $3.5-billion fee to partner on new energy projects in the Churchill River.
Ultimately, Quebec will pay an average of 5.9 cents per kilowatt hour for energy from all Labrador sources over the 50-year contract. The deal comes with stipulations that prices can change along with the market, officials said Thursday.
Tobin dismissed questions about whether one cent per kilowatt hour in the first year was enough of an improvement. He pointed to Newfoundland and Labrador’s past unsuccessful attempts to challenge the 1969 deal in court, including in the Supreme Court of Canada.
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