Still more ways to not be autonomous

From a hysterically funny Sue Hickey report in Thursday's Grand Falls Advertiser, one which (hint, hint) really deserves a wider audience within the nefarious Quebec-based chain of occupying-oppressor propoganda rags Transcontinental family of family newspapers:

While the province isn't planning a lawsuit against Ottawa and Quebec to get full rights back to the power of the Upper Churchill Falls, the justice minister said government still isn't giving up on the highly contentious hydroelectric project.

"Right now there's nothing in terms of legal actions, but if I had a wish list in terms of trying to rectify the terrible inequity of the past, the Upper Churchill would be at the top of the list," said Justice Minister Jerome Kennedy, who was in Botwood for a PC fundraiser last week.

[...]

Minister Kennedy said the province hasn't given up on the Upper Churchill, even though full rights to the project don't officially revert to Newfoundland and Labrador until 2041.

"In 2016, there's an automatic renewal," he said. "The contract itself is good for 35-40 years with a renewal for another 20 years approximately," he said. "But we'd like to find a way to negotiate with Quebec or ask for the federal government to intervene to give us back the power we deserve."

Perhaps the crack legal mind of Jerome Kennedy can explain: which federal head of jurisdiction would the federal government use to "intervene"?

(On a more philosopical note, what is the moral imperative by which anyone "deserves" power?)

And oh — save this one for posterity. It's perhaps the most prescient thing that anyone has said since, well, since Danny Williams predicted that future provincial governments would hide behind exemptions to the Access to Information Act:

"We in this province have to stick to our guns. The premier's policy of no more giveaways is the basis on which we must govern. Lessons of history have taught us that mistakes can be made, even though they were well intentioned. We cannot fall into that trap."

Amen.