02 June 2008

ECNL - Part 2 - Delayed

The second part of the mini-series on the energy corporation legislation is delayed.

There are amendments either already introduced or pending, some of which could change the meaning of specific sections of the bill dramatically.

Better to wait until the whole thing is finished and then put together a general description of the legislation and what the energy corporation will look like.

One interesting tid-bit that's turned up already: last fall, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale made a comment in an interview with Ted Blades, a comment that seemed strange at the time.

She said something to the effect that Hydro would buy power from the Lower Churchill. It seemed strange at the time since any Lower Churchill development corporation seemed like a natural subsidiary of Hydro itself and therefore, Dunderdale would have the company buying power from itself.

Turns out she was right, but the rest of us couldn't have known it in September 2007. The plan, as contained in the EnerCorp strategic plan - released in March 2008 - is to have Hydro as a subsidiary of EnerCorp alongside all the companies that used to be subordinate to Hydro.

So yeah. In order to get power to replace Holyrood generation, Hydro would have to buy power from its sister company.

-srbp-