NL Hydro CEO Jennifer Williams says it’s business as usual in work to finalize the MOU with Quebec following the resignation of Michael Sabia as CEO of Hydro-Quebec.

Sabia announced yesterday that he was stepping down to take on the role of top bureaucrat in the federal government. Sabia, who was in St. John’s last week for the Energy NL Conference, takes over as Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet effective July 7.

In a statement posted to NL Hydro’s website, Williams, who worked closely with Sabia throughout the Churchill Falls MOU negotiations, says from the outset, Sabia “understood that any new deal considered could in no way resemble the 1969 deal.”

She thanked him for being open-minded to a new working relationship between the two utilities.

Williams says they’re now planning engineering and geotechnical studies this summer saying now “is not the time to pause.”