REGINA – The opposition New Democrats have lobbed further attacks on the government’s move to extend coal generation, with more criticism aimed at the health impacts.
Speaking at a media event outside of SaskPower on Monday, NDP Health critic Meara Conway and SaskPower critic Aleana Young pointed to an analysis released by the Pembina Institute.
Conway said that analysis pointed to $160 million in avoidable health care costs resulting from the impact of running coal for decades.
“This is 160 million dollars of avoidable health care costs at a time when our health care system is already at a breaking point, at a time when we have the worst access to a family doctor primary care in Canada, at a time when people are already waiting too long for life-changing and life-saving surgeries, at a time when our emergency rooms close without notice,” Conway said.
“We need every resource that we possibly can to rebuild our health care system, so you know, it's very concerning to see (Minister of Crown Investments Corporation) Jeremy Harrison ram through this catastrophic plan and today we're highlighting just one more cost of that plan.”
This latest criticism is on top of the NDP claims over the past month that the government’s plan to extend coal to 2050 will cost $26 billion, a figure that the government has repeatedly disputed.
More recently, the Opposition has shifted its focus particularly to the health impacts of coal generation. At a news conference earlier this month, Rural and Remote Health critic Jared Clarke pointed to a letter to MLAs from leaders of several health organizations opposing the coal extension. Now, with the Pembina Institute report release, the NDP is further doubling down on the health issue in connection to coal.
Conway said impacts include “premature and unavoidable deaths, asthma, cancers, hospitalization — these are the health impacts that are listed in the Pembina Institute report, and they've managed to quantify that, given it a dollar amount of $160 million in unavoidable costs directly related to running coals for decades to come.”
As for the NDP’s proposal of using more natural gas until the transition to nuclear power takes effect, Young said that would be a safer alternative.
“In addition to having significantly lower emissions when it comes to things like carbon dioxide, the health impacts of unabated coal generation, whether it's SOx, whether it's NOx, whether it's mercury, whether it's arsenic — these are well-established health impacts that emerge from the burning of unabated lignite coal.”
As for whether there will be any action from the government on this, Young had this to say:
“Well, they have opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to come out and explain why their plan is so good, and yet here we are, a hundred odd days into this conversation, and they continue to hide any kind from any kind of public accountability. Whether it's behind over 2,000 fully redacted pages of FOIs 250 days past the legal deadline, whether it's their unwillingness or inability to explain why doubling people's power bills by 2040 is going to be such a great idea for households and industries across this province, or why they changed course so abruptly to take again what SaskPower has called the highest risk and the highest cost option available to them.”
SaskToday has reached out to the government for a response and will update once that is provided.
