Finance Minister Craig Pardy is cautioning the public to wait for debate in the House of Assembly before being swayed by what he calls speculation on the new Upper Churchill agreement.
Some have suggested that the province wait Quebec out until the end of the current contract which expires in 2041.
Pardy says residents have to look at the deal in its totality and consider the added impacts through increased economic and industrial development, rather than only focusing on NL’s rate of return vs Hydro-Quebec.
“We’ve done an economic analysis…and we’ve looked at what the generation would be for the revenue coming in to the province, and we think that the mining and the industrial development – we’ve talked about data centres – that is where the economic gain is going to be strong for Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Pardy says the economic opportunities from the deal will be significant.
He says by 2033 the province will have more than $1 billion coming in, and by 2041 that will increase to $2.7 billion in revenue from this proposed agreement alone. Those are “significant numbers” says Pardy. “Add it to the mining GDP, add it to the oil and gas, and I would think that we’ve got a good prospect for the future on revenue.”
Debate on the new agreement is set for September 14th .
