The First Person Royal Prerogative

From various media accounts of the Hebron fallout. The speaker in each case is, as Terence Corcoran has cleverly coined, Hugo Williams.


“We have good reason to believe that ExxonMobil was the only partner (dissenting)”

“But our position is, and what we understand is, that the holdout was ExxonMobil.”

“We will be prepared to take you out.”

“If that takes 10 terms and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador want to re-elect us time and time again, we'll stay here until this is done. So they won't wait us out.”

“We've come out very strongly indicating that we can't allow one company to hold up development of this project on an ongoing basis.”

“We will be saying to oil companies in this province that you won't be able to sit on discoveries for five or 10 or 20 years without developing.”

“Our motto here will be 'use it or lose it.'”

“But give us an opportunity to develop this.”

“We are going to have to find a way to legislate you out, because we are not going to allow a company like ExxonMobil or anybody else to hold up these reserves indefinitely.”

“What we have said is that we are going to find a way that, if development of discoveries are not proceeded with on a timely basis, that they are going to be forced to abandon them.”

“We have worked toward a good-faith negotiation.”