Ches Crosbie’s historical revisionism
Amazingly, some people still can’t decide whether or not the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam project is a massive blunder.
Even more fascinating is that there is still an occasional person who thinks Muskrat Falls will somehow benefit the province, despite the flood of evidence to the contrary.
By now, it is fairly safe to declare that anyone who harbours doubts about — or outright support for — Muskrat Falls hasn’t been paying attention. Either that, or they are projecting wilful fantasy.
Speaking of which, Progressive Conservative Leader Ches Crosbie recently said some things that should astound and anger any Newfoundlander who pays even casual attention to the news.
Crosbie and the PCS face the monumental task of getting voters to either forgive or forget that it was their party that approved and implemented Muskrat Falls, a misadventure that will bring financial ruin to the provincial government and to many Newfoundlanders, and will burden Newfoundlanders yet unborn with debt due to PC folly.
Just in case voters won’t forgive or forget, Crosbie has opted for the old PC standby of manipulation — obscure the facts and twist history to your own advantage.
Former premiers Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale did it to get the Muskrat Falls project rolling, and Crosbie is carrying on that tradition.
In an interview with Telegram reporter David Maher, published on Monday (“Tory Leader Ches Crosbie tries to distance PCS from Muskrat Falls legacy”), Crosbie acknowledged the Liberals have blamed and will continue to blame the PCS for initiating the Muskrat Falls debacle.
“My response to that is, look, PCS are like everybody else in this world: we’re only human. If mistakes were made — and we’ll let the inquiry tell us about that — we are only human…,” Crosbie said.
“If mistakes were made”? The mind reels.
A man who wants to be premier wonders “if” Muskrat Falls is a mistake.
Pal, if you don’t know by now, you have no business asking the electorate to make you premier.
It gets worse. Crosbie claims the PCS circa 2010-12 based decisions on the best information available at that time.
“If it turns out to be wrong advice, then all I can say is we acted in good faith,” Crosbie told Maher.
“Wrong advice”? “Good faith”? Those two preposterous phrases alone should cost the Tories thousands of votes in the 2019 provincial election. They are classic historical revisionism.
For years, the PCS ignored all sorts of good advice.
Environmentalists pointed out that projections of the province’s future energy requirements totally discounted the benefits of conservation. Ignored.
A crowd of citizens suggested it was unwise for the government to prevent the Public Utilities Board from examining and advising on the Muskrat Falls project. Ignored.
The Telegram opined it was foolhardy to continue with a megaproject that private investors had decided not to touch with a 10-megawatt pole. Ignored.
(A high-up energy industry insider who at that time responded “no comment” when asked for his thoughts about the Muskrat Falls project was a Fortis exec named Stan Marshall.)
We await Crosbie’s explanation of how the PCS “acted in good faith” by rejecting the numerous well-reasoned critiques of the government’s Muskrat Falls plan.
Long before the first shovel bit into the Labrador dirt, critics had proposed that the province look instead to the potential of wind, tidal and solar power, all of which are being developed and used around the world (see: Nova Scotia, Bay of Fundy).
Rather than consider this advice “in good faith,” the PCS made it against the law for commercial enterprises to sell such power in Newfoundland and Labrador.
This was not due to heeding the “wrong advice,” as Crosbie wants voters to believe, despite plenty of proof to the contrary. It was the result of PC arrogance and hubris, an authoritarian attitude and a belief in their own infallibility.