Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
NDP Energy Critic Sally Housser. Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
2024 11 29 NDP Energy Critic Sally Housser intro
NDP Energy Critic Sally Housser intro
REGINA – The NDP’s new energy critic spent several years working with Enbridge, getting the Line 3 replacement built, several years before she was elected. And several years before that, she worked in Manitoba’s equivalent to our energy ministry.
Regina-University MLA Sally Housser told Pipeline Online on Nov. 28, “I’m originally from Newfoundland. I moved to Regina for love. I’ve been here for over a decade now, but a good few places in between Newfoundland and here. I used to work at the Canadian High Commission in London, England for five years. I went to school at University of Ottawa, and I worked for the Manitoba government previously. And there I actually I worked in communications for the Minister of Innovation, Energy, Mines and Hydro, as the department was known then.
“When I was there, we were very focused on the hydro aspect of that ministry. It was kind of a catch-all,” she said.
“In the private sector, I was registered consultant for government relations and kind of communications advice for Enbridge for four years. So, kind of based, based out of Alberta, I guess. I was living in Saskatchewan, but spent an awful lot of time in Calgary between 2015 and 2019.”
That was for the Line 3 Replacement project, the most recent major pipeline project to span Saskatchewan. Pipeline Online ran into Housser at a community consultation at Maryfield, Saskatchewan, prior to construction start.
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“That was kind of a big file I had in my when I was working as a consultant, but also through that, worked for a couple of other kind of oil and gas producers on smaller contracts around kind of strategic communications. And, I’ve also had the opportunity to work with some solar and geothermal as well.”
While the critic roles are decided by the party leader, Housser did offer up her experience in the energy field as a good fit, and it appears to have panned out that way.
While she doesn’t come from an oil and gas family in Newfoundland, she married into one. Her father-in-law spent many years with 7G Energy.
Housser noted how the Hibernia offshore oil developments were especially important to her home province of Newfoundland when the cod fishery moratorium came into effect.
“Coming from Newfoundland, obviously, oil and gas is, a massive part,” she said. “And particularly for me, growing up in the 80s, and the cod fishery had collapsed, the Hibernia oil development, that played a huge part in the psyche of the province and in terms of the future, and you have the your oil developments, in Newfoundland. But also my generation, the amount of people that went to Fort McMurray, of course, which I’ve had a chance to visit many times. It’s just at so many touch points in my life, the oil and gas industry has played a part in it.
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“We lost one industry, kind of overnight. And so there were many people that believed in many ways it (oil) was a saving grace.”
Asked where she sees Saskatchewan’s energy sector going over the next few years, Housser said, “We need to continue to build and grow, and I think a major part of that is research and development and innovation, right? And so many of the big companies, the producers, people in this space, both in oil and gas and renewables, see that as being a big part. The more efficient we can get, obviously, the cheaper, the more reliable. I think that that’s a really big thing.
“I think when you look at SMRs for the nuclear side, it’s something that certainly you know on the opposition side here, where we’re interested and we want to have a look at it, but it has to work. It has to have the added value. And it has to be transparent, because, as you know, the cost of it will be paid by the SaskPower ratepayer. And one of the biggest costs for oil companies, again, as pumpjacks rely on electric motors, so a massive increase to the ratepayers, which oil and gas is a big one. That’s going to be a problem, right? So you have to look at things in a way that’s going to be the most value added.
“And also, we’ve got to look at the transparency. We haven’t seen a lot of that from the Saskatchewan government. They’ve got a bit of a history of cost overruns. So what’s being said now, that’ll be a cost 10 years down the road. It’s hard to consider that super reliable.
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“But in general, I think that we’ve got to really attack our energy needs, and that’s both from a provincial level, but also from the individual level, what people need in terms of affordability, what people need in terms of consistent and safe energy needs over the future. We’ve got to look at all the options on the table, everything available to us.”
Asked about the NDP’s take on the Sask Party government’s stated goal of hitting 600,000 barrels per day production by 2030, with Premier Moe alluding to the possibility of eventually hitting a million, Housser said, “You took the words a bit out of my mouth. It is aspirational, but the transparency on exactly how we’re going to get to this, what the government’s role can and should be, as we’re doing that, obviously the NDP, we’re massively in favor of anything that is going to create more good paying jobs here in Saskatchewan. We need more revenue. And for our side of things, and I know from already talking to people in the oil and gas industry, and for the election, we’re not touching, we have no interest in touching royalties or corporate taxes, because in order to get that kind of production up and create those good jobs, the industry needs stability and predictability.”
She finished by touching on potential research and development in the energy space.
“Any money that is put into that level of technology and innovation, one, it attracts new people and kind of the finest mines to the province, and then the payoff for making things more efficient, more functional, cheaper to do and build. It’s just that the payoff for those kind of dollars and investment in that is something we really need to be looking at. We want to be a leader, not just in the production of things and the extraction of things, but in the science and technology. We’ve got so many difference as you referenced here in Saskatchewan from the uranium, the lithium, the potash, the Bakkens, the oil and gas. It’s a place where we’ve got, we’re spoiled for choice in these, and that makes it, in and of itself, a great place for all these, you know, the potential for new ways of doing things exist here.”
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