Public anger has been palpable the past couple of weeks since Finance Minister Cathy Bennett brought down the provincial budget, which handed Nalcor Energy $1.3 billion and introduced a head tax, a measure more fitting for feudal times than for a modern petro-province.
The lords on Confederation Hill don’t comprehend why the peasants are so peeved. Premier Dwight Ball says the deficit reduction levy won’t be rescinded.
Bennett and her sidekick have been in power a mere four months, and already they exhibit the arrogance and intransigence that Newfoundlanders (and Labradorians) are accustomed to. Although, slapping additional taxes on people whose income is below the poverty line reaches a new level of despicableness.
More to come
The $1.3 billion allotted to Nalcor Energy in the budget brings the total amount the Crown corporation has plucked from the pockets of the populace to $3.6 billion.
While the government closes libraries and taxes books (listen for an announcement of Bennett and Ball’s first annual book-burning party), the Liberals continue the Tory tradition of handing billions to a project that was, and is, founded on lies, manipulation and misrepresentation.
It will get worse. In September 2015, Ed Martin — the $685,000 man who then headed Nalcor — announced the project’s estimated cost had risen to $7.65 billion.
A recently released report by EY (formerly Ernst & Young) called Nalcor’s cost estimates “unreasonable.” Unfortunately, EY didn’t put a number on what would be reasonable — $8 billion? $9 billion?
Straightforward arithmetic enables us to see how much worse Nalcor and Muskrat Falls are going to make things for the people of the province.
People are protesting the cuts made in this year’s budget. Put this into the calculation: the province still needs to put at least $4.05 billion into Muskrat Falls in the next couple of years (7.65–3.6).
If you believe EY’s numbers rather than Ed Martin’s, the amount of public money that must be put into Nalcor/Muskrat will be even higher.
For the sake of clarity, let’s suppose EY pegged Muskrat’s actual cost at an even $8 billion. That would leave the people of the province with $4.4 billion left to pay prior to completion in 2018.
So, in the provincial budgets of 2017 and 2018, Nalcor/Muskrat would presumably be allotted $2.2 billion each year.
You can almost hear Bennett and Ball discussing whether the head tax should be doubled or tripled.
Falls failure
There are high hopes for Stan Marshall, who brings decades of experience with Fortis Inc. to his new job as head of Nalcor. Some people say if anyone can turn the Muskrat fiasco around, Stan can. Some say if Muskrat must be killed, Marshall may.
I have a more basic request. I want Marshall to insist to the government that Nalcor Energy must compete in a free market, and thus the law that no other utility company can produce power to sell to Newfoundlanders must be repealed.
Of the many indicators that Muskrat Falls will be a disastrous project, this is one of the most important. The project’s success relies on a law that forbids ratepayers from buying power produced by wind, solar, tides, geothermal or any other method that may yet be invented and marketed by other companies. This is not only offensive to the fine principles of free enterprise, but makes a mockery of the claim that Muskrat Falls power will be “green.”
In any event, while we wait for Marshall to act, start setting aside money to pay next year’s head tax.
Brian Jones is a copy editor at The Telegram. He can be reached at [email protected].
