Much ado about power

On March 24, New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham stood before the Legislature and declared his $3.2 billion deal to sell NB Power to Hydro- Quebec was no more.

The deal fell apart the last few weeks while the two governments attempted to turn the deal into a legal document. Graham said the new requests made by Quebec were going to be harmful, not beneficial to the province. So he killed the deal.

Dead Deal: Citizens still taking action (Diane Cole photo)

And now with the collapse of this sale, control of the utility will remain in the hands of the New Brunswick government.

Those opposed to the deal were elated when the news broke Wednesday morning. Many saw this as the ultimate victory. But the issues raised with the sale are only the beginning of a larger energy debate. Many of the issues presented to the people of New Brunswick still need to be addressed.

NB Power is still in debt. The rates are still going to increase in April. Point Lepreau is still overdue and costing the government millions of dollars. Plants like Dalhousie, Belledune and Coleson Cove are still operating on fossil fuels, which isn’t helping New Brunswick’s carbon footprint.

These are all contentious issues, and have sparked a public reaction unlike anything before in this province. Citizens were engaged and put pressure on the government to makes changes. A movement happened through the use of Facebook, Twitter and the media. People rallied together and made their voices heard which ultimately resulted in the revisions to the original $4.8 billion deal.

Citizens of New Brunswick came together under this cause and forced their government to hear their demands. If the question of what to do with NB Power is to be answered, the people need to continue this action. Furthermore, the leaders need to keep listening to the people.

There is going to be an election in September and NB Power will be the number one issue. To avoid conflict to the degree that we’ve seen these last few months, it would be wise for the government and the opposition to sit down, assess the situation and come up with some fair and sensible solutions.

Obviously selling the utility isn’t a popular option with constituents, but there are many other options. They need to be looked at and weighed by both parties and plans should be created and added to their platforms.

But they can’t just throw those plans at the people and step away from the debate. An open form of communication between the parties and the people is what needs to happen. They can present their options to the people, listen to their reactions and input, and then use that to further create a plan that will be both effective and appealing to citizens. The turmoil associated with Graham’s deal arose from that lack of communication.

But with communication comes the need for open-mindedness. There must be some level of emotion taken out of this debate, because at a certain point it becomes a roadblock. Open and fair communication can’t exist if one side can’t see the argument of the other because their sensibility is being clouded by intense emotion.

We saw another area of failure in the last few months. Not only was there great emotion on the side of the public, but on many occasions members of Graham’s government seemed to be taking a firm and emotionally driven stance on the issues.

No one was right or wrong when it came to this deal. There were pros and cons to selling NB Power, and there were also pros and cons to keeping things as is. By investing such emotion into the debate, both sides turned it into a yelling match.

So in order for something effective to be done about NB Power, people need to put their differences aside and look at the facts here. Everyone needs to weigh the options and carefully look at the short term as well as the long term effects then decide on the best plan of attack.

Change happens by taking action, and the right kind of change happens when you tackle it with the right mindset and for the right reasons. This is what needs to happen in the next several months in New Brunswick.

Shawn Graham and Conservative leader David Alward will have to put their best foot forward, and the people of New Brunswick will have to continue to push them to make the right decisions.If not, then we will only see more problems associated with NB Power and they will never truly be resolved.

Short URL: http://www.newbrunswickbeacon.ca/?p=5425

Posted by Diane Cole on Mar 26, 2010. Filed under Opinion, This Week's Edition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.