Loup de foux

Plus the Reading List for 07 Apr 23

Furey’s junkets mirror his policy positions. He’s all over the place. At some point, you wonder if he will bump into himself.

When the words “Atlantic Loop” first turned up in a federal Throne Speech, newly minted Premier Andrew Furey didn’t know anything about it.

That same weekend, someone in Seamus O’Regan’s office lizzed David Cochrane to type out Cochrane’s report on what a wonderful, splendiferous thing this Loopy thing would be.

Since then, the Atlantic Loop has existed more in people’s fantasies than anywhere else. But the thing seems to be getting closer to reality with word from the mainland that the feds are talking to Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia about putting federal cash into transmission line upgrades between the three provinces. A deal is imminent, apparently. You can tell by the way the Nova Scotians say they are not interested in it. Negotiating in public, so obviously.

And it doesn’t involve Newfoundland and Labrador.

Obviously.

The feds have been backtracking and rationalizing like mad but the omission of Newfoundland and Labrador from a recent mention of the Loop in the federal budget isn’t accidental and it isn’t meaningless.

Cheque’s in the mail. Newfoundland and Labrador is involved in the Atlantic Loop. The carbon tax is revenue neutral.

Not a great week for Team Justin on the veracity front.

Again.

Calling it the Atlantic Loop was always a joke because a loop implies something going back to the start, or around. The Loop will bring electricity from Quebec into the Maritimes to displace the last bits of coal and oil generation, particularly in Nova Scotia.

So a joke because the electricity would only flow one way: from Quebec to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Nothing would flow back, except cash.

Another part of the joke in Atlantic Loop is that the electricity link between Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t work as planned and the Nova Scotia link is too small to take the electricity needed. Well, that plus the grid in Nova Scotia is maxed out now and cannot take extra electricity.

Still, Andrew Furey insists there can be no loop without electricity from Newfoundland and Labrador. truth is it cannot be loop without a… you know… loop. There’s got to be a way for the electricity to travel and as far as Newfoundland and Labrador is concerned, there is no transmission line anyone can count on from the wilds of Labrador, down across the island, and out to Nova Scotia.

There’s got to be electricity, too. There is no electricity to spare in Newfoundland and Labrador that already wasn’t going to Nova Scotia for free or for less than the cost of making it. Furey’s comments in the House this week about all our great electricity potential sounded too close to Danny Williams old marketing bullshit about this place being an energy warehouse.

You see, no one knows - least of all Andrew Hisself - where the electricity from here is coming from to send to there even if there were functioning connections. Supposedly, we need 1800 megawatts on the island, which would be double what we already produce. No word where that’s coming from.

There’d be some on the island - theoretically - if all those expensive wind projects ever get blowing. But they’d require an upgrade to the Maritime Link, which no one is talking publicly about. So no wind, really and no way to get it off the island. If the Loop really was to include *this* province, upgrading the Nova Scotia connection for all the wind would be logical. No mention of this province in the budget implies the wind thing is as true as the claim we are in the loop.

The logical place for new electricity generation is Labrador, ‘cept Furey’s got nothing in Labrador that isn’t already optioned by Quebec. And Francois Legault flattered Furey endlessly and lured him into talks that Furey and the provincial government were obviously unprepared for. That locked up Churchill and Gull. At the same time, Furey’s Great Big Bag o’ Wind policy excluded Labrador. There’s not a single inch of Labrador touched by it.

The result is that as far as energy is concerned, Furey and his Brain Trust are pre-occupied with Legault’s negotiations on Churchill Falls and Gull Island. A few people are mucking around with the hydrogen and wind brain fart. Together with the provincial government’s hide-bound bureaucracy and the lack of coherent energy policy, Newfoundland and Labrador is out of the loop game.

Meanwhile, Legault is doing exactly what anyone with a clue knew the Quebec government was doing all along. Quebec’s been busy this past week announcing the start of a new hydro project on the Petit Mecatina River, starting talks with the Cree about expanding other established hydro sites, and putting out requests for proposals for 1500 megawatts of new wind generation. Wind and more hydro was *never* Quebec’s Plan B. It was always Plan A, alongside pulling the wool over the eyes of the fluffy Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Job done.

When asked by the hapless Pea Sea opposition about the obvious fact that Newfoundland and Labrador has been outfoxed on energy - again - the very best that Andrew Furey could sputter this week was a go-to line from an old family friend.

“[Maritime Premiers] don't want to be on bended-knee to Hydro-Québec either. That is why this is a Canadian project that deserved Canadian input to ensure that not only did we get the maximum value for our precious resource, but that the end-user can also get the value that doesn't have to be on bended knee to Hydro-Québec.”

It was bullshit when Danny Williams said it as Williams’ efforts to sell his Lower Churchill project foundered everywhere he tried unsuccessfully to pitch its super-expensive electricity. Now it just looks like pathetically recycled bullshit.

Not just because Furey’s obviously got nothing to back up his weak attempts at bluster except that nonsense. Furey’s line about bended-knee is pathetic because only a few weeks ago Furey was standing next to Francois Legault proudly boasting how we had to put those sorts of stupid ideas behind us.

Apparently, going around in circles is policy. If that’s the case, we’d be better off just making a big hamster wheel behind the Confederation Building so the Premier and cabinet and the rest of the House of Assembly can make a few watts for the grid while they are at it.

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Subscribers can carry on for the reading list, which returns this week with a few gems to keep you going over the long weekend.

From now until May 5, we’ll be running a promotion on annual subscriptions to mark Newfoundland and Labrador’s could-be national holiday. May 5 is a Friday this year so there’s a column on the importance of that day, if you want to know why it is important.

Monday I’ll be back in the town of High Dudgeon on the state of the university in the wake of the Timmons Affair.

There are also a couple of budget-related columns coming in the next couple of weeks as well as a look at the Pea Sea leadership fight.