Should Nalcor be shut down?

What we have to do right now is to make the best of a very bad situation.

And taking actions just for the sake of making a point — even if revenge feels oh so sweet — isn’t one of the ways to do that.

Monday, Liberal leadership candidate John Abbott was blunt about Nalcor Energy, the provincially owned jewel in former premier Danny Williams’ energy policy that brought us the fiscal catastrophe of Muskrat Falls.

“Nalcor has written the darkest chapter in our history. It has lost its right to exist. I will shut it down and put it back in Hydro where it belongs,” Abbott told a news conference.

The sentiments are understandable, and the move might be a political crowd-pleaser. At this point, though, it might also be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Winding up Nalcor means, first and foremost, finding the money to cover the costs that are implicit in closing a business.

Not only that, but rolling Nalcor’s operations into Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is more than just tricky, and dates back to the creation of Nalcor in the first place. Nalcor was set up — gaining ownership of Hydro in the process — to allow the company to handle investments and spending outside the province’s system for regulating electrical utilities.

Bringing all those operations back under the regulatory system means that they become part of Hydro’s costs, and part of its rate base.

That means Nalcor’s costs — whatever and wherever those costs are — end up immediately and unavoidably back in the lap of the electrical ratepayer. Unless, of course, Abbott intends to change the province’s utility regulation system as well.

Thing is, none of that changes anything — we owe what we owe.

As one electrical industry watcher accurately tweeted yesterday, “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Abbott also said he wouldn’t allow power to flow from Muskrat Falls until the federal government co-operated to find a way to keep power rates where they are now.

“Muskrat Falls is not in charge of us, we are in charge of Muskrat Falls. So let’s take charge, force the issue with Ottawa and end this nightmare ourselves,” Abbott said.

Once again, probably a popular sentiment, but a flawed one. Like it or not, we’re still contractually obligate to supply power to Nova Scotia. And, even if power isn’t flowing and our electrical bills haven’t yet risen because of that, interest on what we’ve borrowed continues to pile up on the project.

A recent letter from Hydro to the PUB put the interest and bond payments — per month of delayed operation — at $67 million. That’s money we’re on the hook for regardless.

That is one heck of a costly game of chicken to be promising to play.