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.
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