With Newfoundland and Labrador on its financial knees, a business columnist with Quebec's largest newspaper says Hydro-Québec should pounce in order to secure a favourable deal for Labrador hydro assets.
ST. JOHN S, N.L. Poor management and a culture of indifference toward debt have brought Newfoundland and Labrador to a financial breaking point, according to a long-awaited economic report released Thursday. The report titled The Big Reset says the province s overspending and debt-servicing burden put it at risk of being unable to pay public sector salaries and keep hospitals running. To correct course, the report says the government needs to rein in public sector spending, re-evaluate its contracts with unions and dismantle the provincial energy corporation. We have been shocked as a panel to talk to very senior managers . who just think that deficits don t matter, said Moya Greene, who chaired the team behind the report. We were pretty surprised that we don t evaluate any of our programs, we just keep adding to (them). Those are ordinary principles of management.
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Where the leaders head Saturday
Ches Crosbie s Progressive Conservative party is pledging a path to balance but no actual balanced budget for at least four years.
The party s blue book platform, revealed Friday in St. John s, says a PC government wouldn t present a balanced provincial budget until a hypothetical second term. The overwhelming focus has to be on jobs and growth, Crosbie told reporters in St. John s. The other half of that, doing something about our expenditure problem. And I ve told you that I agree something needs to be done. I made a few remarks as to how we re going to do that. But the focus has to be on generating the wealth, generating the jobs that will keep people here, that will unlock the potential of this province.
Friday, January 22, 2021 - 20:34
To the Editor:
Gary Sutherland of Hydro Quebec wrote a Dec. 3, 2020 letter [“We need bold moves now in fighting the climate emergency”] in response to my Nov. 25 letter [“Keep the wealth of New York in the state].
In his Dec. 3 letter, Mr. Sutherland wrote, “CHPE will bring a significant amount of low-carbon energy right into downstate New York.”
This is Mr. Sutherland’s third letter in recent months, and the first time he acknowledged Canadian hydroelectricity has a carbon impact.
The Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is a proposed one-billion watt, high-voltage, direct-current-transmission corridor (powerlines) that would cross eastern New York from the Canadian border to New York City. Much of it would be buried in trenches under Lake Champlain and the Hudson, Harlem, and East rivers.