REGINA — Opposition Leader Carla Beck was at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention on Monday, where she spent a good portion of her time focused on her party’s plans for power generation.
Her afternoon speech to delegates included extensive remarks on the Grid and Growth plan, which she described as their “ambitious power generation strategy that our team’s been working on for over a year.”
She touted it as a plan that will drive $33 billion in new economic activity and provide the stability needed to attract further investment.
“Key to this plan is keeping power rates affordable and keeping them predictable,” said Beck. “This is a plan that puts Saskatchewan people, businesses and Saskatchewan workers first.”
Beck also pitched to municipal delegates one aspect of the plan: where communities invest in solar not only to generate electricity but to “allow electricity generation for the grid while earning valuable credits for your community to lower costs for you and your ratepayers.”
In speaking to reporters, Beck reiterated that the NDP plan is “in stark contrast to the one that the government has put forward,” again accusing the government’s plan of doubling costs.
“I think there have been a lot of noted concerns about the path that they're on. We've presented a choice to the people of this province, which we're going to continue to do, whether that's on health care, community safety, the voice of young people in our province.”
Beck reiterated that the main difference was on the government’s coal refurbishment plans.
“That is not something that is in our plan. It's of course a huge cost driver. Another big piece of difference between our plan and the government's current plan is where nuclear falls in at which point into the future.”
She made clear affordability was a key consideration of the plan.
“Look, people in this province can't afford to have their electricity rates double. They can't afford to not have the kind of stability and predictability that we need in order to be able to attract investment into our province.
We need to be thinking about where the jobs are in our province and being self-sufficient, not being reliant on imports from the U.S. to be able to generate power in this province. I think those are some key differences between our plan and theirs.”
Beck also defended her plan from criticism that the emphasis on wind and solar doesn’t address baseload power.
“Absolutely. I mean, baseload is an important part,” Beck said.
“Our plan makes use of LNG, both importing LNG from other provinces, but also increasing that LNG production transmission here in the province as well, and I think that's a key difference. Yes, absolutely we need baseload. I think certainly we know that, the independent modellers that we engage with on this plan understand that well, these are leading experts. Ours not only addresses that need for baseload for predictability, but it does so in a way that doesn't double power rates in the province.”
SUMA president Randy Goulden told reporters power generation was an important conversation for elected officials to have.
“We need to look towards building resilient communities and whether it's some alternatives on where we get our power grid from, those are conversations that have to happen,” Goulden said.
“Our municipal leaders are elected, not just to plan for the time they're on councils, but for 20 to 50 years in advance. So where are we, what are we leaving our children, our grandchildren, in my case, my great-grandson, what are we leaving them? We need to keep those communities resilient to be able to provide all the needs for our residents. And our urban communities, we know we provide services for outside of our communities too. We know we provide the hockey rinks, the cultural facilities, all of the other amenities that people in the surrounding areas use, and we want to do that. Because that's one way for them to keep viable too.”
Emergency motion on Grid and Growth plan fails
The power generation issue was also a major topic at the Legislature Monday afternoon. Following Question Period, the NDP’s Aleana Young attempted an emergency motion to call on the government to adopt their Grid and Growth plan.
However, that motion needed unanimous consent to move to debate, and the government majority quickly said no.
Afterwards, Young was critical of the government for not supporting her attempted motion and vowed not to give up the fight.
“They are committed to doubling power bills, they are committed to their high risk high debt option with no off ramp for the people of Saskatchewan, and we’re going to continue to push on this,” said Young.
