For four days many listened to the debate in the House of Assembly. You could hardly call it a debate though because a debate involves discussion and arguments about an issue. The only debate was about whether or not the process involving the largest public investment ever in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history would be scrutinized by an independent process as recommended by Judge Leblanc – Commissioner of the Muskrat Falls Inquiry. The debate ended with a decision not to have any independent review of the MOU. An unfortunate outcome for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL).
The so-called debate was a questioning of those with a vested interest in the MOU, those who had a first-hand involvement in its development. They were hardly people who would question its content, they were merely MOU “cheerleaders”, hired by the taxpayers of NL, and presented on a pedestal to pronounce their views, of their deal.
Really the public gained nothing from the House of Assembly sessions, only the unfortunate outcome that there will be no public disclosure, or independent review. We heard the misrepresentations and there was none more telling then the executives of NL Hydro trying to explain the price of power under the MOU.
Throughout, the “cheerleaders” spoke about an effective average price of 5.9 cents/kWh for electricity, or 30 times the present price. They did acknowledge that the MOU values the power being sold to Hydro Quebec (HQ) from the Churchill Falls (CF) plant at $33.8 billion (2024$). So to explain the big lie, just divide their price into the value and we arrive at how much power we would be selling to HQ annually.
The calculation is simply tis: NL Hydro’s figure of $33.8 billion is divided by 51 years (the duration of the contract). The result is an annual average value of $662,745,098. Next, divide that dollar value by the so-called average effective price of 5.9 cents/kWh. The result is the average annual quantity of power CF(L)co is supposedly selling to HQ annually. And the answer is 11.2 terawatts of electricity. (One terawatt hour =1,000,000,000 kilowatt hours).
Now do you see the lie, the gross misrepresentation that continues to be stated by the “spin doctors” and “cheerleaders”. Anyone can check and see that CF(L)co sells about 30 terawatts of power annually to HQ currently, not 11.2 as suggested by the “cheerleaders”.
The MOU shows that the allocation of power declines to HQ over the 51 years (Schedule E) from the CF plant but on average HQ is getting about 80 % of the power from the plant or about 27 terawatts annually. The real price, 2.5 cents/kWh, is only 42% of what the “cheerleaders” of the MOU are singing. But that lie is going to be continually repeated and the truth will never be told now that there is no independent review.