Critics of the tentative hydro deal between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec say they are uncovering more wrinkles in the MOU.
Referring to themselves as the Group of Nine, the politicians and business leaders accuse Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro of making inaccurate and contradictory public statements on the central $33.8-billion valuation underpinning the deal.
It says government should have gotten an independent valuation of Gull Island before signing any MOU.
The group also says CFLCo, owned by Newfoundland and Labrador, is currently debt-free but would be saddled with $6.5-billion in new debt with the vast majority of benefits flowing to Quebec.
The critics say the whole thing borders on willful blindness and repeats the mistakes of 1969.
(VOCM News)
NL Hydro’s Board of Directors responds
NL Hydro’s Board of Directors is responding, as much as it can during the provincial election campaign, to the latest letter from the Group of Nine.
The latest letter was received by the board through the media and according to the board, the letter has yet to be received by an individual director or member of Hydro’s management.
The Board and Hydro as a whole are constrained in their ability to respond publicly due to caretaker convention restrictions – however, they can correct misinformation.
The board is disappointed that the Group of Nine would issue public remarks knowing that it cannot fully respond during an election.
The Board is questioning the timing of the October 2nd letter and previous letters, indicating that none of the signatories have accepted numerous invitations to meet with those who negotiated the MOU.
The board takes issue with allegations that NL Hydro, CEO Jennifer Williams and materials around the MOU are communicating “half-truths and omissions”. The Board says that assertion is false and that the MOU is “appropriately comprehensive and covers the existing facility at Churchill Falls, as well as the development of new projects in Labrador.”
The board says Hydro has taken an “extraordinary effort…to communicate high level summaries and the details of the MOU, while the Group of Nine has “taken a small subset of public comments and attempted to use those to call Hydro’s overall communication efforts into question.
The board says all information contained on the ourchapter.ca website and in all other Hydro communications is “factually correct” and vetted, and final calculations used by Hydro have been created by its financial team with consultant J.P. Morgan.
The board once again reiterates that the forecasted $33.8 billion in payments from Hydro Quebec to CFLCo is not a fixed set of payments.
