According to Yvonne Jones, it’s like the province has lost a high-stakes poker game by investing taxpayer funds in the Parson’s Pond oil well project. She said she is all for oil exploration in N.L., but it’s not the government’s role to fund it using public money. After drilling two of three scheduled wells, Nalcor announced it would be closing the whole project. “It’s never been government’s role to go out and do the exploration work, companies did their own work, made their own investments in areas where they saw potential,” said Jones. “I don’t see any reason to change that, we’ve had success using that route where the government ended up gaining royalties, we didn’t have to buy stakes in other projects, we just had to collect the royalties.” The mayor of Parson’s Pond is disappointed but believes Nalcor will be back. “They did find oil and natural gas as well,” she said. “They’ve gone this far, I think we’ll see them back here in a few years.”
