Province learns dam lesson

Some in Newfoundland and Labrador are urging the province to take a sober second look at the massive energy partnership with Quebec announced last week.

Historian Jerry Bannister worries the province will repeat the mistakes it made with the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam, which inched over the finish line in 2023 after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns.

The associate professor at Dalhousie University says politicians promised Muskrat Falls would usher in a new dawn for Newfoundland and Labrador — just as Liberal Premier Andrew Furey did last week when he announced a tentative agreement with Quebec.

Bannister says the government must commit to robust oversight of any new hydroelectric installations in the deal — a step the province did not seek for Muskrat Falls.

The Inuit Nunatsiavut government in Labrador is also warning of mistakes made with Muskrat Falls, and urging the government to take precautions so the land and hunting grounds around the projects are not contaminated.

Indigenous people in Labrador occupied the Muskrat Falls worksite in 2016, and Bannister worries the same will happen with the projects proposed with Quebec if the government is too eager to approve them.

Under the tentative agreement, Quebec will pay an average price of 5.9 cents per kilowatt hour for power from the Churchill Falls generating station, netting Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro about $1 billion per year until 2041.

And Hydro-Québec will pay Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro $3.5 billion for the right to upgrade and expand the Churchill Falls facility and build a new hydroelectric plant further down the Churchill River at Gull Island.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2024.