Who Do You Believe?

The history: Ever since the idea of developing the Lower Churchill hydro project came to the fore I've been a big supporter of utilizing as much of the power as possible to attract local industry to Labrador.

Through multiple correspondence, between November 2006 and March 2007, with Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister of Natural Resources, Kathy Dunderdale, it was made abundently clear to your's truly that attracting industry (precisely building a smelter) in Labrador was not in the cards due to the costs involved.

Over the past few months Premier Danny Williams has publicly stated on several occassions that the building of a smelter in Labrador is indeed one of the key uses he sees for Lower Churchill power.

The Present:

On January 2nd of this year I took it upon myself to write the Premier about this apparent disconnect between his direction and the information I had been given by his minister. I followed up that correspondence again on January 22nd. To date there has been no response to my concerns.

What follows is a copy of my January 2nd letter. If anyone would like to "suggest" to the Premier that perhaps he should respsond to these questions I encourage you to do so. His email address is:

premier@gov.nl.ca


January 2, 2008

To: Premier Williams

From: Myles Higgins

Dear Premier. Williams:

I am writing to ask your office for clarification of the statements you have recently made to various forms of media which appear to be in direct conflict with those made previously by your cabinet representative, Ms. Kathy Dunderale.

Recently you have made it very clear that one of the mega-projects you hope to see come to fruition is the development of a smelter in Labrador that would make use of Lower Churchill power and create much needed jobs in the area. I congratulate you for investigating this approach to utilization of the Lower Churchill as I have long been a proponent of using that power to attract industry to the region rather than for export alone.

My concern lies in the fact that when I approached Minister Dunderdale in November of 2006 on behalf of the Newfoundland and Labrador Defense League (NLDL.org) to ask her why your government did not appear to be very proactive in pursuing a smelter for the region she responded to me that a study, conducted by ALCOA, had shown that, “…it was not a viable option and in fact required almost $1 billion of Government financial assistance.” (Please see attached letter “Dunderdale_Nov_2006.doc)

When questioned about the details of these costs Ms. Dunderdale said she could not go into the details of the study but reiterated that a smelter in Labrador , using Lower Churchill power, would cost ALCOA $1 billion more than other alternatives. (Please see attached letter “Higgins.pdf which was sent to me by Judy Beckwith on behalf of Minister Dunderdale in March of 2007)

My concern does not lay with the government’s intention to attract industrial development to Labrador , in fact I applaud the move. My concern lies instead with the apparent conflict in message between your office and that of your Minister. I am also concerned over which message is the correct one and as I expressed to Ms. Dunderdale at the time, my concern is also what the province might be lacking that would require an expenditure of $1 billion dollars in order to make Lower Churchill spin off development competitive with other options available to large organizations like ALCOA.

Your latest comments on the development of a smelter in the region have once again raised my concerns and additionally, I wonder why this massive expenditure no longer appears to be a factor. Has the cost simply disappeared for some reason, are we to expect that if a smelter is developed it will cost the provincial government a massive expenditure to make it happen, or is there really a drive underway to build a smelter at all or is this simply political posturing of some kind? I sincerely hope the latter is not the case.

Sincerely,
Myles Higgins