Alward's N.L. trip funded by taxpayers

New Brunswick taxpayers picked up the tab for Progressive Conservative Leader David Alward's unannounced trip to discuss energy issues with N.L. Premier Danny Williams in St. John's on Monday.

Alward has criticized Premier Shawn Graham's Liberals for using taxpayer dollars to promote their party at government announcements in the run-up to the Sept. 27 election.

When Alward met reporters on Tuesday to discuss the trip to Newfoundland and Labrador he explained he went to meet Williams in a dual role.

"I was there as PC Party Opposition leader," Alward said.

The two jobs are different, however. Alward's Opposition leader budget comes from the taxpayers, while the Progressive Conservative Party's money comes from people and companies who choose to donate.

'This was not some cheap political trick.' — Tory MLA Bruce Fitch

At first, Alward said the trip to discuss energy issues with Williams was a party-funded trip.

"That will be paid for by the party," Alward said.

Tory Bruce Fitch, an opposition MLA and former energy minister in the Bernard Lord government, who joined Alward in St. John's, confused matters on Tuesday at a media scrum by suggesting the trip was more along the lines of legislative Opposition business.

"This was not some cheap political trick. This was doing the work that the Liberals should have done," Fitch said.

Alward's staff later contacted CBC News to say the trip did come from the taxpayer-funded Opposition office at the legislature and the expense was approved by the independent office of the legislature's clerk because it was non-partisan.

But Alward was touting his party's energy plan, which is a partisan document.

Alward did not announce publicly that he was meeting with Williams to discuss energy. When he was in St. John's, he did not hold any media briefings to talk about the meeting.

The Tories pointed out that Graham travelled to the United States for energy discussions when he was Opposition leader.

N.L. interest

The Williams meeting is significant not only because he is a fellow Progressive Conservative. But Williams, like Alward, was a vocal opponent to the Liberal government's botched plan to sell parts of NB Power to Hydro-Québec.

And Williams is hoping to wheel hydro power from the proposed Lower Churchill development through New Brunswick and into the lucrative United States market.

When the Newfoundland and Labrador government announced in 2006 that it would develop the $6.5-billion Lower Churchill project, it had intended to have the first power being drawn as early as 2015.

But the Williams government has run into a series of legal roadblocks, including a Quebec regulator dismissing Newfoundland and Labrador's complaint that Hydro-Québec was not offering fair access to its transmission system.

Earlier in June, Williams said he has no firm timeline for a hydroelectric megaproject.

Williams told the House of Assembly at the time that his government has been talking to New Brunswick "for some considerable period of time."

The N.L. premier said while he and Graham have had "discussions at just a general level," energy officials with the two provinces "were into fairly detailed discussions" before New Brunswick announced the ill-fated deal with Hydro-Québec.