Ball tears into Crosbie
Premier wants more details on PC leader’s plan, while warning of implications of Tory return to power
Premier Dwight Ball has his eyes set on the 2019 provincial election.
At Thursday evening’s $500-a plate Evening with the Premier fundraising dinner, Ball’s keynote address to the crowd took square aim at Progressive Conservative Leader Ches Crosbie, following Crosbie’s victory in the Windsor Lake byelection on Sept. 20.
Ball says Crosbie did not reveal his true self to voters in the byelection, and the Tory leader is “coasting on outdated, archaic, political posturing.”
“Well Ches, I hope you’ve enjoyed your free ride while it lasted,” said Ball.
“You are the leader of the opposition. And it is time for all of us to demand some actual details from him.”
Seemingly speaking directly to Crosbie, Ball asked, “What hospitals are you closing? Are you cancelling a new Waterford? Well, where are the details?”
Ball says Crosbie is trying to “get those foxes back in the henhouse,” by trying to defeat the Liberals in 2019.
Ball called the Muskrat Falls project “The Grand Muskrat Seduction.”
“I believe Muskrat Falls was the biggest mistake in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history,” he said.
“Liberals have always been in the business of fixing PC mistakes, and since 2015, and there has been no shortage of business.”
Political jabs aside, Ball outlined a few of the apparent strategies the government can use to mitigate rate increases related to the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.
So far, the only plan the Liberals have announced is referring the question of affordable rates to the Public Utilities Board, but Ball gave a few more details of how the government will try to mitigate the cost of the project.
For one, he says the government will try to increase electricity demand in the province by taking oil-heated government buildings and switching them to being powered by electricity.
Ball also gestured at “restructuring financial arrangements” to help offset expenses, presumably referring to ongoing negotiations between the province and the federal government surrounding the Atlantic Accord, though no update on those negotiations has been publicly presented to date.
Ball touted his party’s record since being elected in 2015, saying the Liberals have reduced the provincial deficit by 75 per cent in three years – though at the same time acknowledging that higher oil prices have helped the government on that front.
“We responsibly budgeted at $63-per-barrel oil while the price has consistently been over $70,” said Ball.
“The Tories would already have spent that.”
Thursday’s speech laid out what voters can expect to hear from the Liberal party heading into the 2019 general election: Liberals want to stand on their record, while Tories want to call into question the credibility of the premier, while the NDP will try to discredit the record of them both.
And as the rhetoric gets heated, the first $800-million Muskrat Falls payment due in 2021 will get larger and larger on the province’s horizon.