Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Estevan Mayor Tony Sernick, with Boundary Dam Power Station over his shoulder.
ESTEVAN – When the announcement that coal, Estevan’s primary business, was not going away in 2030, Estevan Mayor Tony Sernick had one of the best sleeps he’d had in a long time.
“I had the best sleep probably in January, when I got introduced to the idea, right? And then, yeah, the other night, I slept like a baby. There’s no doubt about that.”
Pipeline Online spoke to Sernick and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers financial secretary Ken Hoste on June 20, two days after Crown Investments Corporation Minister Jeremy Harrison sent a letter to SaskPower employees informing them that SaskPower would be rebuilding its coal fleet, not shutting it down by 2030.
(You can read Hoste’s part of the interview here.)
“It’s good that it all came down to energy security, right? Obviously, don’t get me wrong. With jobs, livelihoods and all that sort of stuff is always number one. But it really just goes even further than that,” Sernick said.
From the city’s perspective, what does this all mean?
Sernick replied, “Well, it changes the narrative.
“The narrative has kind of been changing a bit, where the city, in 2020, it was supposed to be a ghost town. Here we are in 2025 and we’re going to be rebuilding our coal fleet, transitioning into nuclear.
“So, I mean, we were going to be a ghost town, and the city was preparing, obviously, paying down the debt as much as they could was their goal. They wanted to be debt free by 2030, because of the worst-case scenario, and that’s where the mindset was. But it’s not that mindset anymore. It has changed over the past couple of years.”
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What was the worst case scenario? Sernick said, “Well, obviously, you’re going to be their plan was figuring they would be losing 2000 to 3000 population, you know, get into that 7,000, 8,000 people instead of 11,000 or 12,000. They wanted to be debt free because they figured that they’d be losing a bunch of tax base, right? So, you know, we have a $30 million budget, and they were thinking of 2030, be a $20 million budget.”
Those were the numbers the city was preparing for. Sernick said, “Obviously, it’s forecasted, but that’s the impact that the city was bracing for, and it’s just totally changed now. Now we’re obviously infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure is the focus. It’s been the focus. Like I said, the narrative changed. Honestly when they announced the SMRs, that’s when the narrative changed for the city to worry about infrastructure. Obviously, we’re getting a nursing home. We need a big $10 million sewer and water line going over there for the nursing home, but it also will feed a new residential area on Wellock Road north of there, and so that that’s now the focus, to get that water sewer line over there. Obviously. I mean, if we have to take a loan out or go into debt for that. It just needs to be done now, right? The narrative has totally changed.”
Since the interview, in mid-July the city was asked to allow a developer to substantially modify a residential subdivision north of the hospital. After initially laid out as single-family houses along Wellock Road, the developer asked the city to allow the construction of several condominiums instead. This, after that land sat idle for the better part of a decade with not one new house. The small handful of houses built during that time were on a bay across the street. Otherwise, residential developments had largely ground to a halt in Estevan for several years once a development on the north side was completed.
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Sinking ship attitude
When Sernick ran for mayor in 2024 after four years on council, did anyone ask him if he was running to be the captain of the Titanic?
“Absolutely,” he said. “But I knew that I just hated the attitude. I hated everything. That’s why I got into the world of politics. And that’s what freaks people out about you’re the mayor, or even you’re on council or you’re running for council, and it’s all about that. Really the main thing was just the attitude of everybody was rolling over and dying for lack of better terms.”
There was a pall over the community since 2018, when then-president and CEO of SaskPower Mike Marsh told the Estevan Chamber of Commerce they would not be proceeding with further carbon capture projects, spelling the end for coal by 2030 according to federal regulations. But things turned around for Estevan’s real estate once Premier Scott Moe, in May of 2024, came to Estevan to say Saskatchewan’s first small modular reactors would be built nearby, should the province go ahead with nuclear power.
Sernick said, “Ever since they made the nuclear announcement, at that time, we had 400 houses for sale in Estevan.”
By June 20 of this year, there were dramatically less. Sernick said the number was under 20. As of July 27, Realtor.ca had 75 listings, including commercial listings.
“So, we’re at the stage now where we have to start building new rights. There’s a lot of lots, and that’s where the city is.”
The last ten years, the commercial property side also took a hit. Sernick said, “These are assets to people, where the last 10 years, through terrible policy, they turned into liabilities and big liabilities,”
That terrible policy Sernick referred to was the shutdown of coal.
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Relief
When the announcement was made public, Sernick got plenty of phone calls and text messages, from the public and from media.
Asked what people said to him, as mayor, once they heard the news of coal’s revival, Sernick said, “It’s just relief, right? I call it a generational decision. Obviously, they’ve been building new gas plants around the products, kind of at the potash mines.
“If you actually look around, it’s just a generational decision, where it’s like getting that energy security, energy sovereignty, right? The last five years have been crazy, COVID and that, obviously, with the US, tariffs and everything going on there. If that doesn’t wake you up to realize that you have to look after your own?
“So starts in your municipality, lots of people worry about too much what they can’t control. Call it federal politics or something, something larger than that, what you can control is what’s right in your backyard. You gotta start there and build out.”
Team effort
Sernick said, “It was a total team effort.”
“Like, not one person saved (Estevan) … It was total team effort by a bunch,” he said.
“I would say there were a dozen people, 20 at the most, that didn’t give up. Like I said, the attitude everywhere you went was, ‘It’s over. What are you doing? What are you doing, fighting for coal? It’s over.’ You know what I mean? And I always said, ‘It’s not over until the shut the last boiler off.’”
“People thought I was insane when I would talk to people inside the area of Regina. And when I went to SUMA, everybody just laughed at me whenever I’d bring it up.”
Sernick’s personal effort to bring attention to the plight of the coal industry was handing out buttons and stickers saying, “Save the Bass.” Since Boundary Dam Power Station keeps that reservoir quite warm, many years ago wide-mouth bass fish were transplanted into the lake. If the power plant shuts down and the water cools, those bass will be gone. So Sernick’s ploy was some people might not care too much about others’ jobs and livelihoods, but they might pay attention to an environmental issue like fish.”
He handed out a lot of buttons.
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Although he works in the oilpatch, but didn’t realize the significance of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery until he got into the political side. But now that coal is being revived, it means the province can take another look at doing carbon capture for more enhanced oil recovery in the region, adding decades to the local oilfield’s productivity.
Asked about the “coal transition” money from the federal government, Sernick is largely dismissive. “Bribery money, I called it,” he said, but acknowledged there were good intentions.
The city’s next steps will include getting infrastructure projects done, including a major $10 million water and sewer line for the new nursing home, but also the new residential area. The downtown rebuild of 4th street will be buttoned up soon as well.
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