New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham placated his constituents yesterday by announcing a revision of the deal under which NB Power will be sold to Hydro-Québec. It was a necessary, artful concession to a sale that was threatening to destroy Mr. Graham's government.
Turmoil engulfed the deal from the beginning. Sovereignty and control were being sacrificed to Quebec, cried the opponents. Three of Mr. Graham's ministers threatened to vote against the deal; another resigned from the legislature altogether. Mr. Graham said anti-French sentiment in rural New Brunswick was fuelling the outcry. Other Atlantic Canadian leaders worried about a potentially rapacious Hydro-Québec on their doorsteps.
The changes allow New Brunswickers to keep some of their debt-ridden, but newly beloved, provincial energy utility. Hydro, nuclear and diesel generating plants go to Hydro-Québec as planned, but transmission and distribution assets will now stay with NB Power. There is a price: Hydro-Québec gets a 33 per cent discount, paying $3.2-billion and taking $1.6-billion - or around 20 per cent of New Brunswick's debt - off the table.
In Mr. Graham's words, the new deal will result in "New Brunswickers still owning NB Power," with two-thirds of the Crown utility's employees staying on its books. That the province will keep the power lines suggests local control has been retained. It's not that simple; the original deal was never going to send New Brunswick from energy hegemony to serfdom, because, with regional greenhouse-gas trading schemes, energy policy is increasingly regionalized. Plans for an expanded Maine-New Brunswick electricity and pipeline network involve a number of jurisdictions and companies, regardless of who owns the current lines. And Hydro-Québec feels that it has still preserved the access to the Maritime markets it was seeking anyway.
But Mr. Graham's useful fiction should help quell the public's outrage, and for this, he should be commended. Despite having a majority, Mr. Graham gave his cabinet ministers a sufficiently long leash to allow them to express public concern. He listened to the population at large, too, in a wide-ranging consultation. Then, instead of damning the torpedoes, he incorporated the feedback, crafting a more palatable arrangement. It shows that some political compromises, even those that cost $1.6-billion, are worth it.