Unless your brain has been sealed in a vat for the last couple of weeks, you are now aware that the NB Liberal Government tends to sell of NB Power to Hydro-Quebec.
Our intention is not to talk about the deal directly in its specifics, but rather how it reflects upon the state of governance within this province, and within Canada in general.
Selling off ones power network and infrastructure is a very dangerous and a risky thing. Even Milton Friedman had reservations about the selling off of power plants.
In his book “Capitalism and Freedom” he contends that having a private monopoly in most cases is more desirable then government monopoly, as it would allow direct participation of community via purchase of share and stock in that utility.
Now agree or disagree with Friedman, I think we all can safely contend that selling your government-controlled utility to an external-government utility is worse than either a local government control utility or a privatized utility.
Not only are citizens of NB limited in their ability to privately control their own power supply through the lack of investment opportunity, but they also lose the democratic reassurance that the local public option brought them.
The NB government also has this weird and nauseating habit of interfering where interference is not needed, case in point – Selection beer.
The government has no business producing, branding, advertising or even distributing alcohol at all. There are a plethora of examples demonstrating that alcohol sales will do just fine without the government’s guiding hands.
However it is not about guidance but revenue and effort.
Liquor stores are essentially the golden goose of tax schemes. They pay for themselves, they will never go out of business, they have little overhead and at the end of the day they sell not only nonessential but harmful products, and rip us off while they do it.
Power infrastructure on the other hand has a large amount of overhead cost and is complicated to operate, but unfortunately it is absolutely essential. So no matter what a government chooses to do, it still needs to ensure the generation and maintenance of the power supply.
Selling this ability to an already-established cloak and a dagger organization is not going to help the cause of New Brunswick.
This brings up the fundamental question of what our government is good for.
It is a sad state of affairs when our government cannot run basic infrastructure, let alone their own liquor franchise. A few weeks ago if one were to buy Selection beer, you would receive a free flask of whiskey… such a failure you have to give whiskey away.
Our intention is not to make this a partisan criticism, as we feel governance in general is at fault.
How did we get here one may ask?
Through decades of mismanagement, underfunding and differing of maintenance, all while governments were trying to use gimmicks like tax breaks and making beer to satisfy us plebes.
We humbly suggest the government get back into business of governing critical items and affairs, and get out of the beer-making business.
A real move of leadership would be the selling of NB Liquor and keeping NB Power, and then the NB government would be back in the game of serious governance.
