After Maine foreign influence ban, Hydro-Quebéc U.S. reflects on ‘very bad’ time

The COO of Hydro-Quebéc's American arm said it would be “a real stretch” to call its activities in Maine “foreign interference” and says they presented “facts and information.”

The head of Hydro-Quebéc’s U.S. arm says it regretted millions of dollars poured into defending its cross-border energy project against a Maine referendum even before state voters decided to outlaw such spending by foreign government-owned firms.

On Tuesday, Maine voters approved a ballot measure that “(banned) foreign governments and entities that they own” from making financial contributions toward campaigns or candidates in local referendums. The measure closes a loophole in federal election law, which otherwise bans such foreign influence in candidate elections but does not cover ballot measures.

But the head of the Quebec government-owned utility’s American subsidiary told Global News the decision won’t affect their operations in the state or elsewhere.

“We don’t really have any thoughts to the future of this, because there is no scenario in which we will ever do a referendum in Maine again,” Serge Abergel, the chief operating officer at Hydro-Quebéc Energy Services U.S., said in an interview.

“This has been a very bad experience.”

Abergel said the whole saga, which he called a “first-ever,” has been a learning experience.

“We have never seen this. We have never done this. We have no interest in doing this again. And to be honest, in the future, we will be very, very careful to avoid places that have referendum processes that can retroactively go back in time and take permits away from renewable projects,” he said.

“It just doesn’t build investor confidence and doesn’t do anything, but just take away your focus and ability to deliver these projects on time.”