Question:
At the NDP Provincial Convention in St. John's from 13-15 of November, two
resolutions were adopted concerning the development of Newfoundland and
Labrador's natural resources. These resolutions are now party policy,
after being approved and debated by the membership. Here is a bref
synopsis of the resolutions:
Answer:
The first resolution concerns the development of off-shore oil resources.
The NDP has resolved, if elected to form a government, to ensure that all
future work involvng the offshore be done in Newfoundland, and that any
company that fails to do so will be fined.
The second resolution involves the development of iron oar in western
Larador. It basically states that the party is oppossed to the use of our
resources to create jobs in other provinces which should be used to create
jobs here. Not only is it NDP policy to force mining companies to keep as
much secondary processing jobs as possible here, the party membership has
also directed its leader Jack Harris to put the pressure on the government
to reverse ts earlier decission.
Any criticism to these resolutions will be listened to and considered as
the NDP is a party that listens to the people it represents.
The flaw in this policy is "The Atlantic Accord" where in all
power over NfLb offshore mineral resources are governed by the
CNOPB (which is run by the Canadian Gov't) As such no NfLb
government submitting to Canada has jurisdiction to carry out
that policy.
That is again a nice hope. But within Canada, NfLb lacks the
power to displace IOC. And IOC said that if they did not process
NfLb iron ore in Quebec, they would not process it at all.
As a second issue, Tobin could not provide a Labrador peletizing
plant with electricity because there is none to spare. Canada is
to blame for not allowing NfLb to export our power as we wanted to.
And now they have strangled our power so much, we cannot use it to
create jobs in Labrador City.
Our iron ore + our hydro power + CANADA = Quebec jobs.
