On Thursday, the premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec met for dinner before their meetings at Churchill Falls
Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Andrew Furey sees the good in Hydro-Québec making billions of dollars in profits.
“I do think it shows how great a position we are in right now,” he told reporters Thursday afternoon before a meeting in St. John’s with Premier Francois Legault of Quebec to talk about where a lot of that money is coming from.
Furey’s feeling is that Churchill Falls is where a third of Hydro-Québec’s $4.6 billion profit comes from.
In its annual report for 2022, which came out earlier this week, Quebec’s Crown energy corporation said it made almost a billion dollars more than the year before. This was the most money it had ever made. Almost $3.5 billion of this money went back to the government of Quebec.
The power plant on the Churchill River sends power to Quebec for only 0.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which Quebec then sells for a huge profit. Hydro-annual Québec’s report said that in 2022, the average price of export sales was 8.2 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Legault got to St. John’s on Thursday, and that night he and Furey had dinner at The Rooms. The two leaders will talk about this deal and what will happen when it runs out in 2041 on Friday.
Furey won’t call the meetings a negotiation, but he did say that he thinks Newfoundland and Labrador’s position is stronger because of the utility’s earnings.
He said, “It’s clear that Hydro-Québec needs those profits, and they need that asset.”
Furey said that the generating station “gets more valuable by the day” in response to the high export prices and the chaos in the energy markets.
He has said that Quebec’s power needs are “urgent,” not just for export but also for domestic use, and Legault has made it a top priority to renew the deal as the province tries to cut emissions and meet its growing electricity needs.
Furey and Legault will meet in St. John’s on Friday morning.
Find out more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador.