Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 25, 1982, Winnipeg, Manitoba Free november tiny Price difference lost Grid by feed Cleverley at one of the last they came Back with one last proposal that was a lot like the old Sterling Lyon it was All very maybe they had concluded that what the tories had negotiated want so bad after although never admit that that is not the nature of the political these words came of of Robert who was president of the Saskatchewan i Power corporation tinder pref Ilef Allan me was describing the final Western Power Grid position presented by Manitoba Energy minister Wilson Parasiuk that was ultimately rejected by Saskatchewan and what Moncur was quite Sim is that Parasiuk came Back with virtually the same agree ment Saskatchewan had initialled pre he Felt that he had to turn it things had changed during the months it had taken for Parasiuk to conclude that what the tories had negotiated want so bad after by this time 1982 Alberta had already pulled out of the perhaps Peter Lougheed did not appreciate Manitoba Premier Howard Hawleys criticism of his government made at a nominating meeting in Alberta last May perhaps Lougheed reasoned that since much of the construction Money for the Manitoba Power station that was to be the foundation of the Grid was coming from Albertas heritage he could do without Hawleys whatever the the fact re Mains that the final proposal put Forward by the new nip government of Manitoba for the Western Power Grid was nearly identical to the agree ment reached by the former conservative government eight months it came too after economic conditions changed and after the other two partners became tired As Moncur put Manitoba attempt to get us to pay get less and assume virtually All the it was a Case of an opposition party coming to Power with the natural suspicion that the old government had been trying to give away the they seemed to want one More go at to try for a better we just Felt wed gone As far As that was even if the escort Oitay haunt would still have had difficulty recommending the Deal to the to should be criticism was voiced not by conserva Tive but by a Saskatchewan Power official who was subsequently replaced by the new conservative Saskatchewan a month before the final Manitoba proposal put on the table in Cal there was a heated Exchange betwee Parasiuk and Sterling Yort itt the Manitoba in which Parasiuk said the Lyon agreement was unacceptable because it did not pro Perly reflect the costs to Manitoba of building the Limestone generating because it offered More Power to the other provinces than Limestone was Able to produce and because Mani Toba needed More benefits from the Grid than the Lyon agreement provid in Calgary a month Parasiuk offered to put Limestone costs within on half of one per cent of the Lyon agreed with the output figures put Forward the Lyon adm Nistra and agreed the sharing of benefits virtually unchanged from the original taking the Points in reverse Parasiuk agreed to accept the Lyon clause on Benefit sharing with the deletion of half a in his summary of tabled As part of his Para Siuk said Manitoba proposed that the interim agreement include a commit ment to explore and share reliability Manitoba withdrew this proposal Tolje course of discussions in order to expedite the achievement of an interim in the legislature in had questioned the amount of the Power that could be generated at Lime he that the gigawatt hours mentioned in the Lyon agreement was be cause when the next station Down Stream was built Limestone would lose Sonie of this Lyon had argued Mil ther difference could be made1 tip at Cost by using Othef surplus a Fri Otth Parasiuk had apparently been persuaded to adopt the Lott itt his attempt to Sal Vage Tiff Calgary proposal stated is prepared to with draw for a changed Sale amount aria will accept clause As the commencement dates should be to ensure they Are mutually on All matters except Limestone Parasiuk had abandoned his earlier on the matter of the Lyon said the capital Cost for the Limestone generating station shall be the actual Cost that shall not exceed 110 per of million based on March 1981 dollars plus allowances for actual inflation and interest during on june Parasiuk referring to the clause this was a mistake and just an amazing the base Price was put in As of 1981 and that was a mistake by the previous chairman of weve sought to have that reflected As 1980 no mention of the 10 per cent escalation which we Felt was the real Cost and this is what was con firmed to due to fac tors such As construction Camp a com and revised construction the 1980 base Cost has increased to it is thus recommended that clause be revised As follows the capita costs for the station be the actual a committee with equal representation from each prov Ince established to Monitor the Limestone generating the Manitoba proposal put Forward a month later did not stick to either the unlimited actual Cost or the estimated million Parasiuk said was the revised the new Cost clause read the capital Cost for the Lime Parasiuk right finally came Stone generating station is currently estimated at million based on dollars the estimates so provided Are based on the most reliable information recognizing the current of investigation and the final costs to be used in the costo service calculations shall be actual and As determined by the appropriate technical committee and recommended to the coordinating the terms of reference under which committees May review and report on All matters related to Cost shall be established by the coordinating Board to but not be res close to duplicating Lyons original Power Grid Davis obstructed nuclear vote Toronto the move to have canadians push for nuclear disarmament through re Ferenda in municipal elections has scored a notable Success in despite a Complete Lac of encouragement by the progressive conservative Premier William Davis and his Cabi in offered some municipalities have been urged since Early this year by a group calling itself operation dismantle to place questions on their ballots asking residents if they support balanced nuclear disarmament disarmament by both sides and not the West the goal is if enough canadians support Canada will seek a vote in the United nations on disarmament that would put pressure on both the Ontario municipal act permits a referendum Only on a municipal question and fears were quickly raised by some municipalities that put Ting a question on disarmament on their ballots might Lead to some objection that could invalidate a whole elec at considerable the municipalities naturally sought some guidance from the province As to what they should municipal affairs minister Claude Bennett offered no More help that they should go find a Good then began a whole Catan mouse game Eric Dowd in Ontario with the Ontario a first opinion from attorney Gener Al Roy Mcmurtry office warned that including a question on disarmament might not Only invalidate an but also make Council members Perso Nally a Liberal a ppm Herb Epp Waterloo North therefore introduced a private members Bill specifically to give municipalities Power to hold a vote on nuclear and re move any in an example of opposition party collaboration rare these the former new demo cratic party Michael seconded David then intervened with a state ment in which he said canadians should contribute what they can to avoiding nuclear but they should not be naive about the violent methods of the soviet this was not much encouragement to Mcmurtry added while it was most unlikely an election would be declared null and void because a Dinar Mamen question was on the he could not give a categorical Assurance that this would never some municipalities understandably still had cold feet and the opposition parties pressed on with Epps Bill and got it approved in some conservatives quibble that it would produce a flood of requests from municipalities to hold votes on matters that might be outside their and that All the municipal votes in the world would not materially affect the Issue of nuclear but none opposed there have since been numerous requests by municipalities and the opposition parties for the province either to make a clearer statement that municipalities would be Safe or give final approval to the Bill empowering them to hold disarmament the province did not accept either and in the november elections 78 on Tario municipalities had a disarmament question on their ballots and an average per cent of their voters supported seeking Many which considered including a disarmament question dropped it because they were worried it might kill their elec operation dismantle organizers mate Between 200 and 400 municipalities in Ontario would have had nuclear votes but for the difficulties posed for us by the government of six municipalities in five in Saskatchewan and each in Alberta and Nova Scotia voted an average per cent to press for and municipalities in several other prov inces Are holding similar ballots Over the next the Davis government appears to have had several motives for its Lack of enthusiasm municipal it did not want a precedent that might prompt requests for votes at the municipal level on All sorts of issues officially outside municipal one argument against this is that nuclear War is a very special there is a Strong feeling among conservatives at Queens Park that a first Precept is that they say or do nothing that appears to undermine the Daviss principal contribution to the East West debate has been that the West must keep its defences Davis May also have been anxious to keep off the municipal ballot an Issue that Many in his party associate particularly with and which they Felt might draw attention to and help Lefto Centre the end result was that Many conservatives supported the Call for with no help from Davis which is because Davis usually goes to great lengths on any Issue to keep on tricked application of conventional management it is understood and agreed by the parties hereto that the principle of fair and reasonable Cost shall apply to All costs associated with the projects and that where such costs Are being reasonably and approved by the coordinating they shall form the basis for the costo service Calculi there is no doubt that costs weighed heavily with during the legislature debate he said the major weakness of the inter tie agreement i that i Felt an agree ment that commits Manitoba to build a Hydro dam at a fixed Cost whereby Manitoba would be responsible 100 per cent for any overruns and if you look at the history of Hydro weve had that was a commitment on the part of the government i was something that the people of Manitoba accept because if there were overruns the taxpayers of Consumers of Manitoba Hydro would have to pay that overrun and pay it As its amortized Over a full 35year imagine if we had an overrun of million or million at 18 per who would be responsible for that the counterargument being put Forward is the Lyon agree ment carried cos Protection against escalating interest rates and Manitoba Hydro has Al ways built in the North under no strike contracts with its and the latest generating station on the agreement from Eide acts of the Federal accidents and work it would seem that the Western which was initialled in sep 1981 by three provincial minis fell apart on and Price the conservatives had agreed to a ceiling on Limestone of million in 1981 plus 10 per while the nip wanted an open ended agreement for practical Pur a ceiling of million in 1980 As with most it depends who is looking at former Energy minister Don Craik had them Exa and received the following re port de escalating the Cost to april 1980 dollars would result in something less than million cracks 1981 agreement because six months inter est on the costs was included in the the difference Between the two amounts in terms of base figures using 10 per cent Cost escalation to and identical inter est shows using a 1980 the conservatives had agreed to Mil lion while the nip wanted using a 1981 base the conservative figure was billion compared to the Dps Craik says the difference in base presented by our agreement and proposal submitted by the nip was on half of one per cent of the capital Cost of the since both the agreement and the proposal made provision for Cost escalation and est during the the in attempting to gain on half of one Long was completed by Mani per bargained the people of Man Toba Hydro within the initial contract of an agreed project estimate Price and came into of Eil by reputable economists to have its original generated nearly one billion dollars of apart from the vice the direct and indirect benefits for the Only other difference in Parasiuk final proposal and the interim agree ment negotiated by Lyons minister of Prairie As the Prin Cipal beneficiary of had the most to gain and threw away Don was the inclusion of billion Dollar Opportunity for the Sake a Force Majure this which had agreed to by the other partners in Der to give the new Manitoba government something to talk about in protected the of one half of one per the action is similar to someone turning Down a transaction for the Sake of a difference in it should provide some idea of the mentality at Evans tries to shift attention from mistake t asked Community services minister Len is so Little Atten Tion Given to Good things and so much publicity to inconsequential matters countered Manitoba govern ment employees association president Gary is minister avoiding an Issue by trying to shift attention away from his own mistake both men were talking about the resignation of Mick Burke As manager of the West bran work activity following a report from the Mega about the method of his appointment and the moving of the person who had originally held that West bran is one of Many programs funded by Federal and provincial governments to train unemployed but employable while doer to know about the method in which a Veteran was placed by g Evans was Mort concerned about the attention Given to a Section which involved less than one per cent of the people in his that argument May have been numerically put concern is not necessarily related to the problem began in May when up Ugias a civil servant who had helped create work activity was shunted aside and replaced by who had been a car Salesman and worked for the in Brandon West curing the lift tory critic Bud Sherman accused the under the dome Arlene Billinkoff minister of ignoring recommendations from department officials when Wark was moved out to make room for a political such por barrelling was or demoralizing other he not Evans although Burke was the Only person interviewed by his Deputy was not an Indica Tion of political the decision to separate duties of the West bran manager from the civil ser vice was make two months because of the governments desire Jef improve the and Burke was chosen because knew the of Cost it was time to get business oriented managers of civil with the Cost of training people rising dramatically in More efficiency was Wark had merely been transferred and would not lose any pay and Evans sawn reason for this Mega was concerned enough to launch an investigation into whether Wark had been wrongly after a num Ber of it filed a report with the government last while the exact contents were not the report basically criticized the appointment because it was done without advertising the position and created staff morale it recommended that the position be advertised for an open there was no recommendation that Burke be but the report obviously Strong enough to convince him to leave the his letter to Evans stated that despite support and he was resigning to avoid further with the responsibility of continuing to respond to the rhetoric and political innuendo which has been levelled at the Meas quasi judicial inquiry behind closed doors six months after the fact now makes my efficient management he also hoped an inquiry be held into the methods used by the was also concerned about those he asked if it was it an investigation or an Atten Tion was focussed on the matter be cause Sherman said Wark was but that was not he we merely wanted a full time it attempt to hire More political Evans main in he hoped to reduce staff and yet help More noting that while Only were helped in the last tory More than 120 have participated in the program since the nip took nevertheless he there was a political tinge to the Issue and regretted having acted if i did it i would do it for the with burkes Resigna a senior err Loyee would become acting despite that admission of the minister still could not understand the Mega it must have spent a lot of time and travel youd think Burke had committed some fed eral i dont know if the ramp spends so much times the inquisition by the inquisition doer was disappointed about the ministers blatant attempt to get away from when attention was first focussed on the problem the Mega agreed to quietly Monitor the he we fulfilled our part of the but Evans had turned matter into a condemnation of the m6tsa what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to he has been very deceitful on this doer Hope that Evans would do his Home work instead of treating Brandon like a if he had known something about his he would not have made a mistake like it is a product of not knowing his Home turf and the ramifications of political a a fully qualified person had been moved out and other employees were obviously the minister was trying to Dodge the Basic Issue by shifting Atten Tion to the it was contended he is failing to acknowledge the the truth a whose political May have been a deciding was virtually awarded a displacing another person who originated the regardless of the the move was handled in a blatant political should the minister be surprised that it attracted attention sum this ;