Loading ...At a glance, it sounds like a great idea. New Brunswick gets to wipe out a $4.75-billion debt and benefit from the cheap power rates in Quebec. In reality, it’s giving away the keys to the kingdom for a temporary gain.
Assuming NB Power would have raised rates by 3% every year, here’s what that $4.75-billion gets for your average New Brunswick residential ratepayer: A 5-year rate freeze worth less than $25 a month to the average household over those 5 years, and a promise that the rates after that will be indexed to inflation… Unless of course we need more power than Hydro Quebec agrees to give us. Then it’s open season.
Meanwhile, industrial rates would be cut 15 to 30 percent to fall in line with Quebec’s, leaving more money in the pockets of the already-rich. Is it really a surprise that editorials in every major NB newspaper (all are Irving-owned, by the way) are hailing the deal? Sure, it will probably generate a few new jobs, but you’re fooling yourself if you think it’s all coming back to the people.
To make matters worse, New Brunswick gets no taxes from the business Hydro Quebec does in the province, and we’re still on the hook for the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau reactor, even though it goes to HQ as soon as it’s ready. The province also has to keep the dirty and inefficient coal and oil-fired plants at Belledune and Coleson Cove running to sell power back to Hydro Quebec, but HQ reserves the right to order them closed on one year’s notice, potentially dissolving more jobs than this deal will ever create.
What we lose: Tax income, self-sufficiency, New Brunswick’s 6,700 km of transmission lines, and a major point of access to power markets in New England and the rest of the United States. With Newfoundland & Labrador premier Danny Williams looking for a way to get power from the new Lower Churchill Falls generating station to the lucrative markets south of the border, it makes no sense to give away a long-term source of income.
Quebec doesn’t do anything that isn’t in Quebec’s best interests… In 1968, Joey Smallwood got hosed by Quebec on the Churchill Falls deal, and 41 years later it’s still a major point of contention in Newfoundland & Labrador. With Joe Average standing to save about half the cost of a medium Tim Horton’s coffee a day, this deal is nothing but bad news for our province, and if this deal goes through, New Brunswickers will be cursing Shawn Graham’s name for a lot more than 41 years.
So, I was ready to make my way to Moncton to get to the Flogging Molly show. I left early in the morning so I would get there at a half decent time, and be able to hang out before the show. I’ve hitchhiked this road before. Once to see Bad Religion, last September, and once more earlier this year to get to the airport the next morning. 
Well I’ve got news for you…
Now here’s an album I haven’t listened to in years. I hated Dave Matthews Band when I bought it back in ’98, but a chick I liked was a huge DMB fan, and teenager hormones make strange things happen…
So I’ve seen this movie before, but while stumbling around the Internet I came across a Google Video of Bill Maher’s Religulous. Now, I thought this the first time I watched it, but I only thought to write about it this time. Bill Maher has a good idea with this video!
With my interest in 
So we all have them, we’ve either gotten one from someone, or made one for somebody else. It’s a staple to anyone who has a music collection that consists of more than one album. Maybe it’s just a compilation of one bands awesome songs, maybe it’s songs you like, but could only record off the radio, you know, the songs you’ve never heard the first fifteen seconds of. A CD for certain moods, happy, sad, angry. Maybe it’s a group of love songs made for that sweetie you dated last summer. No matter what’s on it, they’ve been around for ages. It’s the mix tape. 
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