Breaking of gridlock between Quebec, N.L. is the envy of former premiers – Montreal [Video]

Two former premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador say a draft energy agreement signed Thursday with Quebec shattered a political standoff that leaders had been trying to end for decades.

Brian Tobin, a Liberal premier from 1996 to 2000, said the shift in political alignment will be good for the provinces, and for the entire country.

“I think it is a long-awaited breaking of a gridlock in the relationship between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec,” he said in an interview Friday. “I think that this is really important.”

The tensions stem from a contract signed by the two provinces in 1969, which allowed Quebec to buy hydroelectric power from the Churchill Falls plant in Labrador for just 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour. The contract was set to expire in 2041, and there was no allowance for the price to change with the market.

On Thursday, Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey literally tore up a copy of that contract as he sat …