NB Power deal expected to energize fall sitting of the Legislature

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By Nick Moore
Times & Transcript Staff

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FREDERICTON - The blockbuster $4.75 billion proposal to sell NB Power assets to Hydro-Québec has kept New Brunswick provincial politics lively this fall.

Tomorrow it gets kicked up another notch.

Shawn Graham's Liberal government will lay out its political agenda when it opens the fall legislative session with a throne speech. The plans outlined in the speech, to be delivered by newly minted Lieutenant-Governor Graydon Nicholas, will lead to a provincial election expected in September 2010.

But first, there will be a provincial budget handed down Dec. 1, and what government house leader Mike Murphy says will be historic legislative sitting in the provincial capital.

"I'd like to tell New Brunswickers the session will be rising in March," he said. "The reality is I think we're going to see one of the longest sessions on record."

New Brunswick's current record for longest legislative sitting is 79-days, happening during the Graham government's first spring sitting in 2007.

With the NB Power/Hydro-Québec memorandum of understanding being forefront, Murphy said he expected to see a new record soon.

"It will be one of the longest on record and certainly one of the most professionally acrimonious to be seen," he said. "There isn't going to be any stone left unturned by this government or by the opposition."

"But at some point in time New Brunswickers want their elected officials to make a decision."

With there being little doubt of the cross-province power proposal making up a large portion of tomorrow's throne speech, the Progressive Conservatives say they don't want it to be the sole topic discussed during the upcoming session.

"NB Power will definitely be the main focus but we shouldn't be sidetracked," said Paul Robichaud, opposition house leader. "We shouldn't lose focus on other important issues and the budget will give us very important indication of where the government is going.

"I'm expecting a very long and very interesting session."

Murphy said a number of "not very controversial" issues which would likely be dealt with before Christmas, and that an electricity act would likely been seen sometime in late January or early February.

As for the throne speech, political observers say tomorrow will be huge landmark for Shawn Graham's government and New Brunswick politics in general.

"I think this is most important throne speech the Graham government will ever deliver," said Don Desserud, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick who specializes in provincial politics.

Desserud said the very nature of the NB Power/Hydro-Québec proposal, and the strong reaction it's getting from both spectrums, would require something more than vague political rhetoric seen commonly in other throne speeches.

"I don't think they can get away with that this time," said Desserud. "They need those details."