Tag: Muskrat Falls

Newfoundland keeps cycling back to “the next big project” because of path dependency (how ideas, institutions, goals, and infrastructure lock in repetition) and soft budget constraints (bailouts that reward risk). Muskrat Falls shows the pattern: a 2005 cable promised 2015 power, but delivery came nearly a decade late at double the cost—while dissent like Brad Cabana’s was sidelined. The new Churchill Falls MOU repeats the trap: external leverage, political optics, and deferred accountability, unless governance reforms and hard budget rules break the cycle. Read More...

In Newfoundland, protest often begins as resistance but too often ends in opportunism. From Muskrat Falls to offshore oil to fracking, the loudest voices have turned outrage into political bids, industry appointments, or personal leverage. Figures like Andrew Parsons and Kevin Aylward illustrate how quickly protest visibility can shift into corporate roles, while local archetypes — the ambitious candidate, the elder, the enforcers, the gatekeeper, and the consultant-in-disguise — show how movements fracture into manageable pieces. The result is predictable: credibility is spent, trust erodes, and outside agendas advance. Protest becomes currency, traded for status, reputation, or influence — until even the evidence of resistance begins to vanish. Read More...

This editorial exposes the “Technocracy of the Base” — a governance culture in Newfoundland where councils and committees operate more as administrative layers than as engines of strategy. Drawing on the Local Paradox framework, it shows how weak local capacity, reinforced by social conformity and peer pressure, creates the perfect environment for top-down agendas to flourish. From Muskrat Falls to Paris Agreement-aligned wind and hydrogen projects, decisions are accepted without scrutiny, not out of agreement, but from the ingrained belief that resistance is futile. Breaking the cycle will require more than policy tweaks — it will take cultural change, strategic capacity, and the courage to dissent. Read More...

In this opening editorial under the Governance category, we explore how Newfoundland’s municipal structures have been strategically weakened, allowing outside interests to dictate local outcomes without meaningful oversight. Drawing from The Local Paradox in Grand Policy Schemes, the Muskrat Falls debacle, and the author’s own experience with censorship, this piece distinguishes between governance and government—and shows how the rise of the former is not always a step forward. With Orwell’s warnings in mind and federal projects proceeding unchecked, we ask: who really governs Newfoundland now? Read More...