We wouldn't let them do that!

Because some day we might want to do it ourselves! From the Bow-Wow Parliament on Wednesday:

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the problems at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro have occurred over the years because previous governments kept sucking the dividends out, rather than leaving the money in the corporation. They kept draining it out, and draining it dry. As a result, their debt to equity ratio was poor - very, very poor.

We are trying to build a super corporation here, a corporation which Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will be proud of.

It was a previous Liberal government that wanted to actually privatize Hydro. This particular government wants to strengthen Hydro, wants to make it a very valuable corporation: a corporation that will ultimately pay significant dividends back to the people of this Province; a corporation that perhaps some day may have enough value in its assets overall as a result of the Hebron deal and the White Rose deal, possible Hibernia deal, possible deals on gas, possible deals on oil refineries and other exploration projects, where hopefully we might be able to sell it some day and pay off all the debt of this Province, and that would be a good thing.

Confer the proceedings of the Bow-Wow Parliament of March 24, 2003:

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the only crowd that wanted to privatize Hydro are that crowd across the House. It will never happen here.