Citing views eerily similar to those of Konrad Yakabuski of the Globe and Mail, Pierre-Olivier Pineau of Montreal’s business school opined in the Financial Post recently that Newfoundland and Labrador’s Conservative Party has turned the proposed Memorandum of Understand (MOU) into a political weapon.
While Yakabuski exhibited little specific knowledge of the deal, his position seemed to be that NL should genuflect to Quebec because any deal improves our financial position. Pineau reduced the MOU essentially to the details that NL Hydro’s Jennifer Williams has been reciting for months. Both Yakabuski and Pineau display the ignorance traditionally exhibited when Newfoundland and Labrador threatens to interfere in an economic agenda deemed the right of either Ontario or Quebec to make.
One of the advantages of aging – with memory intact – is that I have seen this playbook before. I remember the decade long battle for the Atlantic Accord. While it had plenty of machinations here, in Central Canada the issue achieved no greater sophistication than this: ‘imagine the nerve of these Newfies wanting to play in the big leagues’.
The tone has barely changed, even if we are partly responsible that it survives.
Ostensibly exempt from the requirement for civility, Quebec’s historical grievances are expressed in multiple ways, including a refusal to acknowledge the 1927 British Privy Council decision fixing the Quebec-Labrador boundary. The refusal of cross-border transmission of electric power is another appropriated right. Quebec’s size, and its threats, affords them those rights. Raw political power in Ottawa completes the entitlement.
This is not new either; nor is the fact that there is a group of Newfoundlanders and Labradorian who would sell their souls to Quebec and Ottawa. Many have seen their bank accounts fattened merely with the crumbs of multiple megaprojects including Muskrat Falls. They can’t wait for the next big deal. Most are self-serving enough not to recognize that the MOU is not for NL, that it’s a deal for Quebec. Still, for them, the appeal of a few crumbs is attractive enough to grab the MOU anyway.
Andrew Furey happily accommodated the local jetset; John Hogan, too. Both joined a succession of Tory Premiers whose only contribution to real political leadership was to expose facets of Newfoundland and Labrador’s weak governance, immature political institutions, sadly deficient political parties, as well as their own failure to improve any of them. All uncloaked the underbelly of a society, too, that is as fearless about the state of our public debt as they are to a missed payment to Mastercard.
The question that awaits resolution is whether Tony Wakeham wants to be like Andrew Furey and John Hogan or if he prefers a different path. His promise of an independent review of the Churchill Falls MOU was encouraging from the start; his current musings about a “quick review” not so much. What required a mere instruction to his Chief of Staff or the new Cabinet Clerk – the disbandment of Dennis Browne’s disgraced Oversight Panel and an order for the bevy of lawyers writing up the deal – remains undone.
Still, Wakeham’s plan for a ‘real’ independent review of the MOU is causing the self-serving to run for the Alka Zeltzer. What more sensible folk need to understand, however, is that the mess that Premier Furey served up as an historic deal, implausible as the claim was, cannot be conducted in an afternoon nor fixed the day after.
Some other things need to be said.
The MOU is not Furey’s deal, or John Hogan’s deal, any longer. It is Wakeham’s deal now. Unless it is ripped up or renegotiated, it is Wakeham whom history will record as the author of the massive giveaway.
Premier Wakeham must know that the MOU, at best, is a poisoned chalice. There is a reason for this, and it starts with who made the first phone call. In this case, it was from Premier Andrew Furey to Quebec Premier Legault, when Furey needed to wait until Legault called him – even if the waiting took years which was very unlikely. Waiting was NL’s leverage over Hydro-Quebec even if other, better, options than Quebec are available. Furey didn’t even have the good sense to leave the negotiating table having realized his mistake. Frankly, labelling Furey’s negotiating skills as ‘amateur hour’ would constitute an insult to amateurs.
But the mess has been created. Now, Tony Wakeham will be expected to cave, too.
Wakeham wanted to be Premier; he will have to quickly decide if he wants to also be a leader.
His won’t be an easy job. He’ll have to battle everyone capable of gaining a dime from Furey’s malicious enterprise.
In addition, if anyone thinks that Quebec having ostensibly won the $200 billion that Quebec gained in the lopsided negotiation, that that province’s power utility is going to just lie down, or even attempt to work it out with “Tony”, you are mistaken.
This is an occasion in politics when fundamentally good people either excel as leaders or are found unsuitable.
Tony Wakeham is about to be tested.
DBRS has already emitted warnings of an imminent credit ratings downgrade. University professors, other than Monsieur Pineau, have been in the media counselling NL to take the deal. Most recently, former Labrador MHA Perry Trimper and former Liberal Cabinet Minister opined bewilderment as to what an independent review of the MOU would accomplish. Trimper stated that he “doesn’t want to see a situation where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good”. Could Stantec, the environmental company that worked on Muskrat Falls, whose Labrador office Trimper managed for many years, and which now salivates for Gull Island, have offered him that line?
Of course, we have mostly heard the small fry. If Tony Wakeham dares to exert the kind of leadership that gave us the Atlantic Accord, you won’t hear your ears for the heavy artillery.
Calls will be made, messengers will be sent, the other Bond Rating Agencies will be heard, Federal Ministers will pay Wakeham timely visits, the National Press will opine, the Yakabuski’s and Pineau’s of Central Canada will become emboldened. Quebec will threaten. And, yes, NL Hydro CEO, Jennifer Williams, will be proven right: Quebec will announce a new hydro project to be built in that province. And she will think that she, not Hydro-Quebec, was the superior negotiator. And that won’t be half of it.
A good Premier will recognize the enormous opportunity that the Churchill River now offers this province. But a great Premier, one who is patient, calculating, and wise, will eventually win those benefits no matter what Quebec chooses to do. We already have a leg up compared with the fight over the Atlantic Accord. We own 65.8% of Churchill Falls and the water rights that will enable other developments, too, including Gull Island. If we fail to succeed in this case, we may as well hand all the keys to Newfoundland and Labrador’s resources to Premier Legault.
Thankfully, we have nearly seventeen years to get it right. So, what the hurry? Only this morning I read a piece informing that Google is planning a powerful AI data center on Christmas Island located in the remote Indian Ocean. Premier LeGault would wet his pants if heard that Premier Wakeham was thinking of hosting an international symposium of large technology companies in Western Labrador. We might find out that there is no need to condescend to Quebec at all.
Is Premier Wakeham inventive? Is he courageous? Or, will emulate Premiers Furey and Hogan? He has some decisions to make and they need to be taken soon.
Ah! It’s going to be a tough year in the new-founde-land. But don’t worry. We could be the better off for it.
What is more, we are going to watch the making of a political leader.
Or, we may only see the scrap pile of failed NL Premiers grow another bit higher.