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Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham and Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette will meet in Prince Edward Island on Tuesday to discuss ongoing negotiations to reach a new agreement for the sale and development of Churchill Falls power.
Fréchette’s office confirmed to Radio-Canada the meeting will happen on Tuesday afternoon as part of the summer meetings of Canada’s Premiers in Charlottetown. It will be Fréchette and Wakeham’s first in-person meeting as premiers since Fréchette took office in April.
Talks between N.L. and Quebec to reshape the Churchill Falls MOU resumed last month after an independent review committee reported the MOU signed by Quebec and the former Liberal government wasn’t in N.L.’s best interests.
Wakeham has told the media he has largely stayed out of negotiations, but that the province won’t rush into a deal that doesn’t prioritize N.L. He has also promised any agreement reached will be put to a public referendum.
A statement from Wakeham’s office to CBC News said that representatives from both Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and Hydro-Québec won’t be present — which Hydro-Québec also confirmed to CBC News.
“As Premier Wakeham has previously stated, the negotiating team is in discussions with Quebec regarding the development of the Churchill River. He will discuss the status of negotiations with Premier Fréchette,” the statement said.
Radio-Canada reported on Tuesday that Fréchette said she believes positive progress has been made. She said teams have had a “flurry of back-and-forth” negotiations and she remains “confident that we will reach a revised agreement.”
Getting a deal in time ‘impossible’: Liberal critic
On Monday, Liberal energy critic Fred Hutton told CBC News that while he’s happy to see negotiations continuing, he fears the province is running out of time — and that Wakeham is indecisive about asserting a timeline.
An election writ in Quebec is expected to drop in August, which Hutton says will put any deal in jeopardy. The Parti Québécois — currently leading in the polls — criticized the initial MOU, but have not said they are against a deal.
The Parti Québécois has also stoked tensions with Newfoundland and Labrador over its dispute of the Labrador-Quebec border, suggesting a new government could pursue financial compensation.
“The timeline of getting an MOU and then a definitive agreement, having a referendum and having a debate in the legislature before the end of August … I would say it’s impossible,” Hutton said Monday.
“They’ve wasted a lot of time. And this is my biggest fear, is that we’re going to run out of time before the election takes place in Quebec.”
The former Liberal government had hoped to reach definitive agreements on the MOU by April. But Hutton says the longer negotiations go, the more challenging they will become.
He also criticized Wakeham for not committing to a timeline, saying N.L. has already lost out on significant retroactive payments the MOU would have granted.
“The premier said all along that he doesn’t believe in deadlines, arbitrary or otherwise. But the fact of the matter is that deadlines do matter. And they matter a lot here.”
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