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The incoming CEO of Manitoba Hydro knows something about privatizing a publicly-owned energy utility, the opposition NDP says.
Jay Grewal, president and president of the Crown corporation's history Thursday, is responsible for the Manitoba Hydro.
She was employed with B.C. Hydro when Gordon Campbell was first elected to the Manitoba government to investigate the issue.
Grewal then became managing director of Accenture, a global management consulting firm, which acquired several B.C.
"The appointment of Ms. Grewal is another sign that the Pallister Government is setting the stage for the privatization of Manitoba Hydro," Wab Kinew's leader said in a statement.
"She worked with Gordon Campbell to privatize shares of BC Hydro's shares in the United States," he said. .
A familiar playbook, Kinew says
During question period, Kinew Grewal said, a senior executive at B.C. Hydro, helped execute Campbell's privatization plan.
It was a Tory government, Kinew added, which privatized MTS in the 1990s after promising the public it would keep the telecommunications company under its ownership.
"He's bringing that playbook back to Manitoba," he said of the current premiere.
Afterwards, an animated Brian Pallister said the NDP was trotting out the same balloon trial they've floated for decades.
"This is more than the NDP's just going out of new ideas and they're going back to the same old fearmongering," he said. "Halloween is over."
Pallister said Grewal held a "junior role" at BC Hydro when segments of the utility were outsourced, "but it was not in a position of decision-making or on the lead of the file," he said. "Making the accusation that Ms. Grewal is somehow a privatizer is just a mbadive stretch."
Grewal will replace Kelvin Shepherd at Hydro's top post on Feb. 1, 2019. She currently serves as the President and CEO of the Northwest Territories Power Corp.
She also holds senior executive roles with Capstone Mining and CIBC World Markets, in addition to B.C. Hydro and Accenture.
Referendums needed to privatize
Manitoba Hydro can only be privatized through a referendum, Pallister reminded reporters.
He was asked by Kinew during question period, and afterward reporters, to say he would never privatize Manitoba Hydro, but he brushed off the question as unnecessary.
"How many times do you have to? You guys have asked me this 40, 50 times, come on."
Pallister commended Grewal and Campbell as qualified individuals who do not wish to have their names sullied by the NDP.
The opposition party left Hydro, whose net debt exceeded $ 19 billion, in disarray, Pallister said.
"We inherited a mess and we've got help to clean it up."
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