Executive Council
Natural Resources
May 26, 2010
Unofficial English Translation of the Régie de
l'énergie's Decision Available
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador today released an
unofficial English translation of the Régie de l'énergie's decision, as
well as a summary of the document, on complaints filed by Nalcor Energy
against Hydro-Quebec TransÉnergie. The unofficial English translation is
being provided by the Provincial Government as the official decision is
available in French only from the Régie de l'énergie.
The Honourable Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador
stated that the translation of the Régie's decision indicates that in
order to reach its desired results the Régie acted as follows:
It reached certain conclusions without legal justification to
support same;
It ignored express factual evidence and denied existence of
some;
It made findings of fact while ignoring the weight of the
evidence;
It contradicted itself and put aside its own previous
decisions;
It used unsupported conclusions to pre-empt legitimate
related arguments;
It ignored established principles of open access;
It engaged in significant misinterpretation of evidence;
It justified unsupported statements on the basis of
"discretion";
It supported suppression of necessary evidence and working
papers to assess System Impact Study;
It engaged in a major misinterpretation of the Open Access
Transmission Tariff (OATT) which has no legal ground in civil
administrative or common law rendering the entire complaint
process ineffective;
It breached principles of fairness and natural justice.
"The overall result is to deny access to Québec facilities for the
benefit of fellow Canadians while expecting open access from our
American counterparts when requesting similar access south of the
border," said the Premier. "It is behaviour which should not be
tolerated by Canadians or Americans who believe in fairness and
competition in the market place for the benefit of consumers."
This is an unofficial translation and was completed under the
supervision of legal counsel to Nalcor Energy. It does not represent an
official translation and the Provincial Government is not responsible
for any translation errors. The document, as well as the summary, can be
viewed at www.nr.gov.nl.ca/nr/.
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