The EWA Report - or at least the part you and I can see - Part 1

Let's start with the EWA Report

It is important to note that not all of the Report was made public - as such comments made by Sue's Blog are relative to the information available.

The first paragraph Sue's Blog will address is:

"Based upon the information provided to us by the management of Persona Communications Inc, it is our opinion that without considering any ancillary benefits accruing to Persona that are beyond the scope of the trans gulf project, Persona requires the provincial funds of $15,000,000 to implement the project."

(Emphasis Added)

The EWA Report and Consultants with Government's approval did not consider any "ancillary benefits".
What are the "ancillary benefits"?

Some of them are described in the paragraph below - taken from the EWA Report.

"Without considering the ancillary benefits to Persona, such as additional revenues derived from new services and or new communities served not currently considered in this project, Persona does require the full $15,000,000 funding from the government to ensure a positive rate of return."

The EWA Report (at least the part publicly released) does not identify any community specifically related to this "trans-gulf" project.

Why would any assessment of a proposal - which requires government investment - not include market potential? There is only one reasonable answer to this - to ensure that the proponent/s of such a proposal require government funding - when clearly if ancillary benefits were considered - the need for government assistance would probably disappear.

Based on the limited "ancillary benefits" criterion used in the review - it should have been predictable that Government money would be required.