Consumer advocate offers tips to avoid a future megaproject burden for taxpayers
There were 144 days of hearings and 137 witnesses during Muskrat Falls inquiry
Newfoundland and Labrador's consumer advocate has some recommendations for the Muskrat Falls public inquiry commissioner, Judge Richard Leblanc, after listening to almost a year of hearing testimony surrounding the controversial hydroelectric project.
Dennis Browne held a press conference on Friday morning to mark the end of the long-running public inquiry, which he said had 144 days of hearings and 137 witnesses.
Browne, who spoke to reporters for roughly 30 minutes about why the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric megaproject shouldn't exist, said the province didn't need the project and it wasn't the least-cost option.
"Muskrat Falls was never a project that was considered by Hydro as valid, nor by previous governments as valid because it didn't have the water," he said.
"It needed the water from another supply in order to combine with existing water to give, consistently, 824 megawatts."
Recommendations
Browne's list of recommendations began with a political problem. Some elected officials have the necessary qualifications for assessing projects such as Muskrat Falls, while others don't, he said.
"They're probably good constituency people, probably good at getting the work done, but they are no good in assessing a mega-project or in assessing spending," he said.
The province needs a legislative budgetary office similar to the Parliament of Canada, Browne said, where the office would oversee legislative spending, determine the province's finances, determine what is and what is not affordable, monitor economic trends, and review extraordinary spending before government spends money.
They should not be out there in attempts to sway public opinion. That is not their function. That is not their job- Dennis Browne
Secondly, Browne recommended that Crown corporations appear before the House of Assembly to answer questions on any robust spending being undertaken on projects like Muskrat Falls, so that government and the aforementioned budgetary office can ask questions "directly, fairly and squarely."
What's more, Browne recommended that members of crown corporations should be prohibited from promoting their own projects and should be permitted to publicly explain and answer questions related to those projects.
"But they should not be out there in attempts to sway public opinion. That is not their function. That is not their job," he said.
Browne also wants to see consumer representation on the boards of Nalcor and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and made a recommendation for integrated resource planning, which he said was advised in the province's energy plan but never implemented.
Next, Browne said that all matters surrounding approvals, estimates, water sources, pre-conditions and Indigenous issues should be finalized before government gives any money to any further projects.
A view to 2041
Lastly, he recommended that government look ahead to 2041 when the Churchill River development deal with Quebec comes to an end.
Upper Churchill bargaining should be taken out of the hands of politicians, since provincial parties have a history of finding solutions while the opposition tears them down, and bargaining with Quebec should begin sooner rather than later, he said.
"An independent appointments commission should appoint economists, financiers, bankers, lawyers, chartered accountants, scholars, negotiators who can recommend to the province how to proceed come 2041," Browne said.
"Both Hydro-Quebec and Newfoundland would need to know within the next 10 years what is going to happen here ... As we get into 2041, we can't have this internal debate between political parties of who is doing the better job."
The inquiry is expected to come in below its $33 million budget, but Browne said knowing exactly what went wrong is worth every penny.
The commissioner is expected to deliver his final report on December 31.
With files from Katie Breen