2024-01-11 05:05:00
It is May 12, 1969, Daniel Johnson is pensive, the leaders of Hydro-Québec have just signed a historic agreement with the province of Newfoundland.
The Premier of Quebec is convinced that his state corporation was taken in by the Newfoundlanders. According to him, this agreement involves too many financial risks and will undermine hydroelectric development in James Bay. In addition, Johnson believes that Labrador should be within the borders of Quebec. For its part, the government of Newfoundland presents this agreement as a great victory, even going so far as to compare it to the province’s entry into Canada in 1949.
Transmission lines to Quebec: CHURCHILL FALLS LABRADOR CORPORATION
A look back at the contentious division of the Labrador border
To understand the not always simple relations between Quebec and Newfoundland, we must remember that, in the interwar period, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London had redrawn a new border for the lands in northern Quebec without taking into account the watershed lines. This redistribution was done to resolve a territorial conflict between Canada and the British colony of Newfoundland. In 1927, the United Kingdom had literally divided Labrador in favor of Newfoundland.
In the 1950s, when Newfoundlanders tried to negotiate with the government of Maurice Duplessis to transport hydroelectricity produced in Labrador through the territory of Quebec to ship it to the United States or Ontario, you can imagine that we are rather hostile to the Newfoundland project.
Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood Martin Landry
Unblocking in negotiations
Things will change in 1962. The Lesage government implements the vast nationalization of private companies that produce electricity to place them under the umbrella of Hydro-Québec. However, in the wake of this forced nationalization, the Quebec state company swallowed, in 1963, Shawinigan Engineering, which held 20% of the shares in the Churchill Falls hydroelectric development project in Labrador. You can understand that this takeover by Hydro-Québec of part of the hydroelectric development project on the Churchill River goes down badly in the office of the Prime Minister of Newfoundland Joey Smallwood. He lets Jean Lesage know. He is furious. He asked that we study the possibility of bypassing the province of Quebec to transmit electricity from the future Churchill Falls power station to the Maritime provinces, then to New England via underwater high voltage lines. After some studies, he realized that the expense would be enormous.
Newfoundland then asked the federal government to force Quebec to accept the passage of high voltage cables through its territory in the interest of the nation. However, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson refused. We must remember that in the 1960s, the rise of the independence movement and the Quebec Liberation Front worried the Canadian state, and this rebuff towards Quebec risked further threatening Canadian unity.
The second largest underground power plant in the world The Canadian Press
Letter of intent between Quebec and Newfoundland
It was from the fall of 1966 that the situation improved between Hydro-Québec and Churchill Falls Corporation. A letter of intent is signed, then a complex partnership emerges between the two entities to increase Hydro-Québec’s participation in the development of the Churchill Falls project. The construction of the power plant is being done at the same time as the clauses of an electricity purchase contract are being finalized. In 1969, Hydro-Québec finally agreed to take almost all the financial and technical risks of the project. An investment of one billion, which represents nearly nine billion in today’s dollars. Quebec undertakes to purchase almost all of the electricity production from the Churchill Falls power station for a period of 40 years, renewable for an additional 25 years. In return, the province of Newfoundland accepts that electricity be sold at the current rate and that this price is not indexed to the rate of inflation.
The contract signed in 1969 is for a period of 65 years, until 2041. CHURCHILL FALLS LABRADOR CORPORATION
Insignificant prices provided for in the contract
If the Newfoundland government seemed proud of the agreement in 1969, with the increase in energy prices in the early 1970s, it quickly became disillusioned. He then took numerous legal steps to have the agreement repealed. The highest court will rule twice in favor of Hydro-Québec.
The Quebec state-owned company, which buys 90% of the electricity from the Labrador power station, has a more than advantageous rate of 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour and resells it at 15 to 25 times more expensive to its customers.
Officially, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is stuck by this agreement and this ridiculous price until 2041, unless the government of Quebec agrees to reopen it before its end.
The Churchill River might regain its Innu name. It was the Prime Minister of Newfoundland Joey Smallwood who imposed the name Winston Churchill on this gigantic Canadian river in 1965. The Innu of Labrador, for their part, call it Mishta-shipu, which means “great river “. For now, both names are used. The Canadian Press
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#1950s #wanted #Newfoundland #electricity