AIMS // Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

There’s another opportunity knocking at Atlantic Canada’s door, but the region needs to act in unison to answer it. The opportunity is Liquefied Natural Gas, or LNG, and the region needs to coordinate its approach to fully realize the potential. That’s the conclusion of AIMS’ latest paper, LNG in Atlantic Canada: Opportunity for Regional Development. Author Angela Tu-Weissenberger examines the LNG world, the opportunities for Atlantic Canada and the three LNG terminals proposed in the region.

THE ATLANTICA POWER MARKET: A Plan for Joint Action by Gordon L. Weil argues that the region is primed for the development of a more competitive regional market for electricity. The problem he considers is how to get the provinces and states to operate their power grids to promote the development of this market.

This third paper in AIMS Oil and Gas Series underlines that while natural gas markets in other jurisdictions across Canada and the continent are quite mature, here in Atlantic Canada natural gas has a virtually zero market share.

Since Atlantic Canadian offshore oil and gas production became a reality in the 1990s, criticism of the royalty regimes and associated agreements has been a regular occurrence in both the media and the respective provincial legislatures. As a result, the public is subject to considerable uncertainty and anxiety about whether returns from resource exploitation are fair.

By February 1st, 2009, between extra payments to government and oil industry, gas price regulation cost consumers in Atlantic Canada more than $155-million. This background paper explains how price regulation is costing you, your neighbours and your guests money every time you fill up your tank.

The paper is co-authored by AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley and AIMS Director of Research, Don McIver. Based on the Institute’s extensive body of research on the impact of federal policies on the region, You Can Get There From Here is an invitation to all federal political parties to re-examine their past policies and declare how they intend to bring Atlantic Canada back into the nation’s economic mainstream.

In his second paper on NB Power Dr. Tom Tucker says the proposed restructuring of NB Power will do nothing to address the problems of high operating costs and high debts. He says shifting the debt from the corporation to the government does nothing to address the fundamental problems which prevent the corporation from generating sufficient cash to retire debt. Turning the business units of NB Power into separate Crowns is nothing more than symbolism over substance.

This enlightening study by Kenneth J. Boessenkool, a senior policy analyst now based in Ottawa, outlines a win-win strategy to reduce the overall cost of equalization and put more money into the hands of the provinces in the long term.

Tom Adams, Executive Director of Energy Probe examines the problems beseting Ontario Hydro, drawing out lessons for Atalntic Canada on how the regions power systems might be further liberalised.

Thomas Adams, executive director of the Toronto-based Energy Probe and AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley presented the findings of this report in October of 1996 to the New Brunswick Legislature's Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. Adams' report recommends quickly opening up New Brunswick's power market to competition, dismantling NB Power into its component parts, and privatizing most of those parts.

In Energizing New Brunswick Power, AIMS author Thomas Tucker provides analysis of NB Power's submission to the NB Legislative Committee on Crown Corporations.