So you thought Tom Marshall was one of the good guys?

In May of 2012 Tom Marshall (Minister of Finance) called Open Line - on that day hosted by Pete Soucy.

During the course of that discussion - which was about prescription drug costs - he waded into Muskrat Falls and their reasoning for it.

For a couple of reasons - I purchased a text copy of that call  - and now it will serve as good reminder for us all.


TOM MARSHALL: So we're putting money in to ensure that our seniors, the people on the 65 plus program are protected and of course the big one of all is going to be Muskrat where we're trying to regulate electricity costs. So, and we'll continue with you know, with things like that to ensure that people on fixed incomes and lower income people are protected.

In this response to a drug program related question - he began to wander into Muskrat Falls. You can see he is addressing seniors and protecting them from higher cost electricity?

TOM MARSHALL: Well you go to remember that Muskrat Falls is for us. It's for the people of the province. Muskrat Falls does not exist primarily. The reason for Muskrat Falls is not to export power, that's why Churchill Falls, the Upper Churchill came into existence. You know, it was done by a profit seeking corporation and their objective was to make money. Muskrat Falls is for the people of the province, it's being done by Nalcor which is owned by the people and it's being done to provide electricity - to meet the electricity needs of the people of the province primarily. We're going to need power here on the island, we also want to shut down Holyrood because that's the most expensive power we have that goes into the grid. And you know, at peak production they're burning 18,000 barrels a day. When they started, I think a barrel of oil was $3. Now it is $103. So - and our experts tells that the price of oil is going to continue to rise and Holyrood produces electricity by burning thousands of barrels of oil. So that's what's been driving up peoples electricity costs. That's why Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro has gone looking for rate increases, it's all because of - or mainly because of the increases in the price of oil. So we need more power and we need to get off Holyrood. In addition, Labrador is going to need a lot of power. There's all these mining companies that want to open up mines in Labrador you know, in the iron ore.

I hope you read each and every word of his next response. Try and get your head around this fiction from just 5 years ago.

Then he adds:   

TOM MARSHALL: And uranium -they're going to need a lot of power. So when we first talked about doing Muskrat, the idea is that the extra power we'd say, well rather than let the water flow down to the sea, we can at least take that extra power, that surplus to our needs and through this maritime link that Nova Scotia is going to build, at least we can sell that extra power, that surplus power to the US market or NB or NS or PEI. But now what we think is that won't happen for very long because ultimately the power is going to be needed in Labrador.

I truly hope the people of Labrador are reviewing this.

There is no doubt I had an interest in this and could not believe the words I was hearing.

I was not the only one who wanted a copy of this that day. You'll probably be surprised when you find out - given the current day affairs.