The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project should go ahead even though an environmental assessment has raised questions about the need for it, says a former federal environment minister.
Jim Prentice, who appointed the review panel that says the proposed $6.2-billion project should be studied further, told a Halifax business audience Wednesday that the federal and Newfoundland and Labrador governments should continue to support the development.
"It is a transformational project for Atlantic Canada that will take the region and our country to a new level of industrial development," said Prentice, now senior executive vice-president of CIBC.
The Calgary lawyer, who left federal politics in November 2010, said he respects the regulatory process, but he added that the final decision on such megaprojects rests with politicians.
"In my opinion, the federal government has done the right thing in supporting the development of the remaining hydropower potential of the Churchill River.
"And in the days ahead, the voters in Newfoundland and Labrador will have the opportunity to voice their opinion as well."
The former Tory cabinet minister said after his speech he wasn’t trying to sway voters in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Oct. 11 provincial election.
"I’m here speaking on behalf of our bank and we are supportive of the project," he told reporters. "The voters in that province will make their choice in the days ahead."
Prentice said a study commissioned by Nalcor Energy, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Crown energy corporation, after the review panel report has helped answer questions about the project’s benefits.
The development includes sending some of the power generated in Labrador to Newfoundland, then on to Nova Scotia by a subsea cable.
Nalcor is partnered on the project with Emera Inc., the private energy firm that owns Nova Scotia Power.
Emera would spend $1.2 billion to build a 180-kilometre subsea link between Cape Ray, N.L., and Lingan.
Nalcor president Ed Martin, who was in the audience at the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council event, said Newfoundland and Labrador’s Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities is also reviewing the project at the province’s request.
"Any type of report or information that we receive, and any questions, we welcome them," Martin told reporters.
"We’ve been very clear about that. We take them in and work with that."
The board’s report is expected by the end of this year or early in 2012, he said.
Meanwhile, preliminary engineering and other work on the project continues, Martin said.
"We’re continuing to do a job. We’re confident in the information we’ve presented. We’re confident in the project."
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