A columnist with a national newspaper says the country has no business bailing out Newfoundland and Labrador.
Jackson Doughart says Newfoundland and Labrador needs to take ownership for its fiscal responsibility – not only on Muskrat Falls but also a decade and a half of massive government spending.
“So is Ottawa right to step in and, with our tax money and AAA national credit rating, send more good money after bad? Not if it doesn’t force Newfoundland to first reckon with its mistake of taking on Muskrat Falls and its excessive public-sector spending.
A bailout without heavy strings attached would reward a province that ignored credible warnings about the project’s bad economics. That the feds share part of the blame for lending their imprimatur to Muskrat Falls isn’t reason to keep digging a deeper hole.” – Jackson Doughart, National Post
St. John’s and Ottawa are talking about some type of plan to rescue the ratepayer once Muskrat comes on stream but the columnist says a bailout without heavy strings would reward a province that ignored credible warnings about the project’s bad economics.
He says the province is careening toward a fiscal cliff with the highest per capita public debt in the country.
Unless Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are willing to rein in government spending, Doughart concludes that the rest of Canada should not rush to help them fix it.