Summary

Since mid-2000 this NLFL website has sponsored a Strait of Belle Isle Fixed Link and continuous Gulf of St. Law-rence North Shore TCH. In 2003, the governments of Canada and Quebec funded joint studies for a North Shore highway. In 2004, the governments of Canada and this Province asked Memorial University to administer a prefeasibility fixed link study. The MUN Study, conducted by Hatch Mott MacDonald, SGE Acres & IBI, agrees with NLFL claims that an electric rail tunnel is technically feasible, will cost about $1.5 billion, will require 11 years to build, and more detailed study is needed. But MUN's Report does not have a viable financial plan and Provincial authorities are deferring further studies.

In contrast to MUN's Report, NLFL has outlined, since 2004, a plan that experience suggests can solve many Provincial financial problems. As MUN's Report confirms technical feasibility and cost, and NLFL has proposed a viable financial plan for the fixed link, all requirements for detailed site studies now exist. Thus, without further delay, Newfoundland and Labrador's Government should create the Fixed Link Study Group that NLFL proposes in this website. That Group's goal should be to find the best way to build the fixed link (that should have been built 25 years ago) and not more studies as to whether it should be built.

NLFL's website authors are grateful for the MUN study. It offers a base for realistic debate on how 530,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans can finally: a)- end their long and costly isolation from the benefits of continuous road travel to and from the mainland; b)- unite this Province's two major regions on hydropower development and abolish two electricity suppliers' current duplicate costs; and c)- use Provincial resources to create jobs in this Province. NLFL's two-part organization plan will resolve these problems and will reduce the Province's long-term debt.

The first part of NLFL's plan calls for a North Shore Trans-Canada Highway to be built, like all TCHs, mainly with federal funds and suitable Provincial support. The plan's second part will replace both Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (NLH) and Newfoundland Power (NP) with one Provincially regulated investor-group (IG), as sole electric energy producer, distributor and exporter in the entire Province. In return for this right, the IG will pay the Province cash for all NLH assets, including those at Baie d'Espoir, Churchill Falls and Holyrood. The IG must also finance, design, build, and operate the multi-use Fixed Link and create new Labrador hydropower under Provincial regulation. With MUN Report's agreement on technical feasibility and cost, and NLFL's financial plan, a sound base now exists on which to create the Fixed Link Study Group proposed in this website.