Jeffrey Simpson has a sensible column on NB Power's proposed sale to Quebec Hydro, which he correctly portrays as the latest battle in the decades-old war between Newfoundland and Quebec. That's a war in which Nova Scotia is no innocent bystander. Simpson, who spoke in Baddeck Friday, can't disguise his contempt for Danny Williams, the uppity colonial, but he has the broad strokes of the conflict right. He notes Ottawa's "desperate" reluctance to intervene on behalf of the weaker party, a bit of realpolitik that might cause one to wonder whether Canada really is a country after all....

29 November, 2009

This promises to be a continuing Contrarian topic, but I will flag it briefly: NB Power's apparently imminent sale to Hydro Quebec represents a tectonic shift in Nova Scotia's energy options. I mention this because, as is typical, the national news media seem to view the story as just another installment in Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams's (to them) clownish battles with central Canada. Such a view is as witless as it is patronizing. The sale poses huge problems for Nova Scotia and PEI, as well as Newfoundland. If Quebec can use its windfall profits from Joey Smallwood's disastrous 1969 deal on Upper...

27 October, 2009