A political blogger says Opposition Leader Tony Wakeham is right about “one thing” regarding his call to pause discussions to finalize the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) reached on extending the Upper Churchill contract: once the deal is finalized, all future options to sell NL Hydro power are shut off.

Premier John Hogan says pausing the discussions is a bad idea from a financial perspective and could potentially put the entire deal at risk.

Ed Hollett says the MOU being finalized now is essentially an extension of the current Upper Churchill contract, which allows Hydro-Québec access to NL power at a fraction of the market cost.

Hollett says if the new deal is as bad as many believe, then discussions shouldn’t be paused but killed.

“In Tony Wakeham’s case, there’s a drop-dead clause in this agreement as it is now. If they don’t get it done by April 2026, or a couple of months afterwards, it’s dead anyway. So, if you think it’s a bad deal, why pause it?” asks Hollett. “Kill the deal if you think it’s bad enough, and it is bad enough, so kill it.” Hollett says if the deal closes, then the only option available to Newfoundland and Labrador to sell off surplus energy is to Quebec.

Hollett contends that Newfoundland and Labrador loses nothing by killing the deal.

“…if we sign it, we lose everything.”