Former premier, historian weigh NB Power deal
Last Updated: Monday, November 2, 2009 | 1:10 PM AT
CBC News
Premier Shawn Graham says he's not worried how history will judge his proposed decision to sell NB Power, but historians and former politicians have already begun to assess the sale.
'There's the easy route, to do very little. Obviously Mr. Graham has chosen to do a lot.'— Ray Frenette, former Liberal premier
Graham and Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced on Thursday a $4.8-billion package that would transfer the majority of NB Power's assets to Hydro-Québec, erasing the New Brunswick utility's debt. In addition, the deal will freeze residential rates for five years and cut large industrial power prices immediately by about 20 per cent, a combined value that is estimated at $5 billion.
Last Friday, a day after the historic deal, Graham attended a Fredericton event honouring former New Brunswick premiers.
Graham said at the event that he is not thinking about his own place in history.
"You govern to the best of your ability. It's far too early today to be talking about the legacy of our government," Graham said.
But others were not afraid to start comparing the proposed sale of NB Power to some of the other great achievements and failures in Canadian political history.
Arthur Doyle, a New Brunswick historian, said the deal is the biggest political gamble since Louis Robichaud's equal opportunity program, which reformed the province's social services in the 1960s.
"It's as controversial, it's as polarizing, and it is as bold, if you like," Doyle said.
Graham serves the same riding as Robichaud did, and early in his mandate Graham announced similar initiatives to those of his political hero, such as reviews of post-secondary education and a restructuring of local governments.
N.L. comparison
Ray Frenette, the Liberal premier who served for a year as the party found a permanent replacement for Frank McKenna in the late 1990s, said history remembers premiers who think big.
"There's the easy route, to do very little. Obviously Mr. Graham has chosen to do a lot," Frenette said.
Frenette, who is also a former chairman of NB Power, said he thinks the sale of NB Power to Hydro-Québec is a good deal, but he acknowledges other mega-deals have gone bad in the past.
"I suppose I could say that back many, many years ago in the case of Newfoundland, Joey Smallwood saw a lot of good things in his deal too," Frenette said.
"But then times change, over a 25- or 30-year period, maybe 50, and then all of a sudden it doesn't look the same. But in this particular case, when you look at it, it appears to be something which will be good for New Brunswick."
Frenette is referring to Smallwood's 1969 agreement with Hydro-Québec over hydro power from Upper Churchill Falls, under which Quebec has gained the vast majority of the revenues.
That's the same deal Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams has been citing recently in his warnings to New Brunswick not to trust Hydro-Québec.
