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CCCA_V5No1_Profiles-FIN.qxd:CCCA_V1No1_Profile-FIN.qxd 2/1/11 6:18 PM Page 18 Profile S ometime around 2017, if all goes as planned, an 800- megawatt generating site at Muskrat Falls, Labrador, will begin transmitting electricity to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia via subsea cable. When the lights go on for this $6.2-billion deal between Halifax–based power company Emera Inc. and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Nalcor Energy, it will redefine Eastern Canada’s contentious energy market,finally freeing the Maritime provinces from the constraints of the 1969 Churchill Falls hydroelectric agreement, which entitles Quebec to buy Labrador’s energy for a fraction of its actual commercial worth. “It’s a game changer,” says James Spurr, who headed the Emera legal team that brought the agreement to the term sheet stage,and who will continue the hard work of turning those terms into a suite of definitive agreements.“In the 30 years I’ve been practising law, it’s probably the most transformational deal I’ve worked on.” That’s about as animated (pun intended) as Spurr, Emera’s gen- eral counsel and vice-president, government relations, gets when he talks about the deal — when he talks about just about any- thing, in fact. Over the course of a career in both public service and corporate law, Spurr, 59, has quietly built a name for himself as an effective, focused and utterly discreet practitioner: one who gets things done behind the scenes, out of the spotlight. James Spurr has orchestrated some “He can certainly keep his counsel,” says JohnYoung, manag- ing partner at Boyne Clarke LLP, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, impressive business ventures during who worked on the other side of the table from Spurr in the his career. Just don’t expect him to t early 1990s on a deal involving the Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO),whose legacy,the SydneyTar Ponds,is one of Canada’s blow his own horn. largest environmental hazards. As financial counsel to the Nova Scotia Minister of Finance (1986–1997),and later as the provincial government’s Clerk of the Executive Council (1997–2001),Spurr acted for the province as it interest in the Barbados-based utility Light & Power Holdings attempted to sell SYSCO.“He was very careful to know his func- Limited. The deal, says Spurr, was just complicated enough “to tion and role, and that was to advise and give advice and act upon make it interesting”: the American seller of the shares and their instructions and not make decisions for his premier,” saysYoung. Canadian buyer merged through an Emera subsidiary in St.Lucia, “But he was sensible enough to provide advice to his clients on under St. Lucian law.“We had a lot of fun with it.” what may be the appropriate instructions for him to receive.” “It was a classic,complicated,time-sensitive file,in four jurisdic- Spurr left government in 2001 to become associate general tions, with issues and complications,and Jim ran it like an orches- counsel at EnCana Corporation in Halifax, taking on a broad- tra,” says Lawrence Stordy, a senior partner at Stewart McKelvey based corporate commercial oil and gas practice, as well as advis- in Halifax, who also worked on the deal. “He’s very business- ing on government dealings and regulatory agencies. He uses the minded, always trying to find solutions, and not getting bogged same skills at Emera, although the bulk of his time is now taken down in the issues.” up with mergers and acquisitions. Emera, which acts as a holding Spurr’s government background comes in handy in Emera’s company for a growing family of subsidiaries, most notably Nova highly regulated marketplace.A registered lobbyist with both the Scotia Power, Bangor Hydro Electric Company, and Brunswick federal and provincial governments, he’s particularly cognizant of Pipeline, is growing actively through acquisitions, in recent years corporate counsel’s ethical and legal obligations in today’s business adding utilities in the Caribbean, New England, and Atlantic environment, even if that means being viewed as a naysayer. He Canada.In 2010,for example,the company acquired a 38 per cent has likened the role of counsel to the legal conscience of the 18 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association SPRING 2011