Mr. Speaker, some time ago I asked a question of the Minister of Natural Resources concerning the construction of a transmission line between Labrador and the province of Newfoundland. I was basically asking about the proposed development of the lower Churchill.
The minister talked around the answer, mainly because at the time he could not remember the exact status in relation to the specific question which was more or less on a study undertaken by his department into the feasibility of the construction of such a line.
In March 1998 the then premier of Newfoundland, who is now a minister of everything in the House and the then premier of Quebec, met in Labrador for what turned out to be a photo op to talk about the development of the lower Churchill. Their plans were disrupted by the native people who were extremely upset, and rightly so, because they had not been brought in on the discussions.
As part of all this a commitment was made by the Prime Minister and the then premier of Newfoundland and Labrador to conduct a feasibility study into the construction of a transmission line from the lower Churchill development to the island of Newfoundland.
Many people fail to realize that Newfoundland does not have a lot of clean power left. Nor does perhaps the rest of the country. The lower Churchill is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, supplier of clean power that is left in Canada.
A transmission line to the province would provide the island of Newfoundland and the Labrador section with a tremendous amount of cheap, regular, clean power which is in such demand. Just recently we heard concerns expressed by the United States, specifically in California, when it had a number of power shortages.
Many of the major IT companies made it quite clear that they could not continue to operate in an environment where there was a shortage of power because of the dependency on their industry. They were to look at setting up backup support in areas that could provide cheap, clean, regular power. A place such as Newfoundland could do that.
The Government of Canada has to understand that different regions, whether it be in the west or in the Atlantic provinces, have a tremendous amount to offer when it comes to natural resources but they need help in developing them. The minister, in his response to me, and I thank him for following up on my letter, talks about a deal between Quebec and Newfoundland. There are many other partners besides Quebec to help develop our resources. The study that was requested is extremely important in setting the groundwork for this work.
I hope the minister has dug into this a little bit more and can shed a little more light on the status of the study that was commissioned by the Government of Canada and the government of Newfoundland.