January 2005
by Barry Stagg
This is a time in the affairs of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador when popular criticism by other Canadians must be resoundingly rejected. The Canadian flag lies in storage on Newfoundland soil because the national government proceeds with disdain and dismissiveness on the matters of most importance to Newfoundlanders.
Pseudo-patriots crying out that their revered icon has been scorned seem to approach national jingoism from peculiar perches. This is the same crowd that revile nationalistic conventions such as a properly outfitted Canadian military. The righteous seem to be roused to the point of apoplexy at the actions of one of their fellow Canadians, a provincial premier at that, who dares to challenge the status quo many of them purport to detest.
The notion that a simplistic call to the hallowed symbolism of the flag will neutralize the substantive claims of the province is condescending nonsense. Premier Williams ordered the flag down in deliberate contemplation of its significance. It is because of the chronic dysfunction of relations between province and nation that this act of defiance has been carried out.
As Premier Williams has pointed out, Canada is a federation. Federal countries cannot permit the maintenance of national duplicity where one set of rules prevail for stronger parts of the country and stricter and parochial constraints apply to the poorer parts of the confederacy. Of course, the plainest example is the festering issue of Churchill Falls hydro electricity which is held hostage in Labrador by the provincial territorial barriers of Quebec. Newfoundland cannot transmit its electricity through Quebec because the federal government refuses to expropriate a national electricity corridor. This contrasts to the national oil and gas corridor expropriated and constructed over the past fifty years. That was what the "Pipeline Debate"was all about when it erupted into turmoil in the House of Commons in 1956. In fact, the federal Pipe Line Act was passed in 1949, coinciding with Newfoundland's entry into the Canadian confederation. Gas and oil lines run the continental length of the country, through eight provinces and one territory. Federal power to expropriate and regulate these pipelines is exercised by the National Energy Board.
In the case of electricity, a resource which Quebec has in abundance, the federal power to establish a national power grid is unused. Any mystery as to the discrepancy between the treatment of these two separate resources, petroleum and electricity, is solved by considering the geography of Canada.
Petroleum was largely discovered and produced in Alberta. Industry was resident in Ontario and Quebec. Hence, the Pipe Line Act in 1949, only a year after Alberta's first major oil strike at Leduc. By 1959, the National Energy Board was in place. The petroleum production comes out of the ground in Alberta and finds its way to refineries in Ontario and Quebec. The national interest is exercised by the construction and use of this network of pipes and valves and the valuable commodity it brings to central Canada.
Hydro-electricity is more an eastern resource, most so in Quebec. The James Bay power project provides a massive amount of electricity which Quebec is able to sell across its international border to the Americans. Quebec does not need federal help to reach the American border with its hydro towers. So, Quebec feels no need for a national power corridor. But, most importantly, Quebec acts as a territorial blockade to Newfoundland electricity produced at Churchill Falls in Labrador. Quebec realizes that a national electricity grid, enforced and regulated by the National Energy Board would vaporize its extortive power over Newfoundland. The federal government knows this too and does nothing. For as long as Newfoundland has been part of Canada, federal law (the Pipe Line Act) has existed to enable interprovincial trade in oil and gas. No such law has been passed to enable electricity to pass across provincial borders in the same commercially ordinary way.
This gives context to the actions of the premier of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Petroleum in Newfoundland is found under seawater. That gave the federal government potentially full ownership of this resource. In 1985, the Atlantic Accord established a management scheme that gave the province an equal share of the offshore production. Newfoundland has been denied the right to freely market and sell its electricity through the confluence of a Quebec blockade and federal abdication. The same sharp business practices are not about to be accepted again by Newfoundland in relation to oil and gas.
Make no mistake, it is sharp and devious business practice that Danny Williams is battling against on behalf of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The province would have long since achieved the economic level of, say British Columbia if it had its market share of the billions paid for Churchill Falls electrical power. For nearly forty years, the rank smell of the contract debacle that gave Quebec the commercial ownership of that massive moneymaker has disgusted citizens of Canada's newest province. Paul Martin is not about to get the chance to repeat history on behalf of his home province.
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