New Brunswick Finance Minister Greg Byrne is defending the final $8-million cost of the botched deal to sell parts of NB Power to Hydro-Québec.

The Department of Finance released figures on Monday that added up the legal, accounting and public relations bills associated with the failed power deal.

Toronto-based law firm Olser Hoskin Harcourt, which acted as the deal's lead negotiators, billed the provincial government $2.43 million.

Byrne said the public money paid to the law firm was justified.

"It is not every day that you sell the assets of a public utility. It was an extremely complex transaction, so we engaged a firm with expertise in these types of transactions, a national firm," Byrne said.

"Again, they did a lot of their subcontracting with New Brunswick firms as well. So certainly there was an opportunity for New Brunswick firms to participate in this."

Osler hired a series of other firms to help in the negotiations, which brought the total bill for legal and technical services to $4.82 million.

The original deal announced in October would have seen NB Power sold to Hydro-Québec for $4.8 billion. A scaled-down version of the deal announced in January was worth $3.2-billion and included the sale of some of NB Power's assets.

A key part of both proposed transactions was a five-year rate freeze for residential ratepayers, a significant reduction in power rates for large industrial customers and a sizeable cut in NB Power's debt.

PR costs

The Liberal government faced an immediate backlash against the power deal and was criticized for a lack of public consultation.

The New Brunswick government hired a series of public relations experts in an effort to sell the deal to the public.

Hill and Knowlton billed the provincial government for $892,000. The firm also handed out subcontracts to Bristol for $175,100 and Colour for $1.22 million.

Canada Post was paid $42,300 for postage for a household pamphlet that was distributed about the deal.

In total, taxpayers paid $2.33 million for communications and advertising.

Another major component of the final bill was for financial services.

Macquarie Capital Markets was paid $882,900 for third-party financial advice on the impact of the deal on New Brunswick power rates. A further $28,612 was paid to Morneau Sobeco for actuarial advice on pension issues stemming from the proposed deal.

Byrne said the experts who were hired by the province provided important information during the power negotiations.

"I think it would have been reckless for us to proceed without the advice that we would need to make sure we made the best deal possible."