Yes. Thank you for the opportunity.
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is constructing a hydroelectric facility that has no storage capacity on the Lower Churchill at Muskrat Falls near Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The associated transmission links that Newfoundland is constructing from Labrador to the island and from the island to Cape Breton are insufficient to carry the peak generation capacity of the Muskrat Falls generator. If Newfoundland and Labrador cannot come to a storage agreement with Quebec around storage of energy, the Muskrat project is going to dump almost all of its production in the springtime, which is the one time of the year when it has a full flow of water, enabling full production.
Newfoundland proceeded with the construction of the Muskrat Falls project, notwithstanding the fact that, subject to the 1969 contract with them, Hydro-Québec owns and controls the assets at Upper Churchill. Newfoundland has always planned on using Upper Churchill generation in order to balance the seasonal flow problem of Muskrat Falls, but they don't have the contractual rights to do this.
The further Newfoundland goes into the project, spending billions after billions on a project they don't have the contractual rights to operate, the worse off Newfoundland's going to be. Very urgently, Newfoundland and Labrador need to make an agreement with Hydro-Québec. Since the federal government is so deeply responsible for causing the Muskrat Falls project in the first place, by virtue of its loan guarantees by first the Harper government and now the Trudeau government, the federal government needs to play a brokerage role. They need to bring these parties together, so that they can come to a fair and reasonable storage agreement for the excess production of Muskrat Falls in the springtime.