Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
A dragline at the Poplar River Mine on Aug. 27, 2025. Since the Poplar River Mine was originally opened and operated by SaskPower, miners there belong to IBEW instead of UMWA. That’s also why the draglines are orange. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
ESTEVAN – The Saskatchewan New Democratic Party has been taking its “Grid and Growth Plan 2026” on the road, promoting their new electrical grid strategy in Prince Albert and Yorkton. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2067 would like to see them do the same in Estevan and Coronach, and see what reaction they get.
That’s because their plan seeks to substantially build out natural gas power generation, using Alberta-sourced natural gas instead of Saskatchewan-sourced coal for fuel. And it would phase out coal-fired power generation “as practical.”
(Pipeline Online ran an in-depth, four-part series digging into the NDP plan, which you can read here.)
Ken Hoste is assistant business manager of IBEW Local 2067. He said by phone on April 24, “There’s been a lot of communication about this plan. But, the people they’re not communicating with about their new plan are the people in Estevan and Coronach that actually have some skin in the game with this. And, I haven’t seen them coming down here and doing a town hall in front of our coal workers that that are going to reassure them.
“To people in other communities, this is a concept. To us, this is very real. This is people who, if this “plan” came to fruition, are possibly looking at losing their livelihoods. I’d like to see them come down there and convince a room full of coal workers that shutting down our coal units and our coal mines is a better plan than what we have now, because the Sask Party plan to run coal, for basically another generation, is a lot more appealing to us.”
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“And they mentioned right in one of your interviews, the NDP is continuing to have talks with those workers, not only in Estevan and Coronach, but across the province. Well, nobody’s been down here to talk to us that I know of.”
“This plan has no guarantees, no timelines, no clear pathways for our workers. The biggest thing it lacks is any kind of certainty for coal workers. If they were serious about not leaving workers behind, the plan would state plainly ‘This how a coal worker transitions into a new career, and this is exactly what the new job will be.’”
Hoste said, “I read through it and looking across the Grid and Growth Plan, it’s clear that the NDP has put some serious thought on how they’re going to transform the assets of the electrical system. There’s a lot of talk of natural gas, renewables, possibly nuclear, and we see their plan for replacing coal power with natural gas and renewables in the short term. But what’s missing from that plan is a clear plan and path forward for those whose jobs depend on coal. There’s a lot of detail there as far as replacing the assets, but there’s no attention to detail there as far as what the coal people are going to do. I would argue that the workers should come before their plans as to how they plan to make a profit off of electricity. I would argue that the workers are the most important asset, but they seem to have been forgotten, once again with this plan.”
Poplar River Power Station, one of three SaskPower coal-fired generating stations and currently the one with the highest nameplate capacity. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
IBEW represents hundreds of electrical workers at the SaskPower Shand, Boundary Dam and Poplar River Power Stations, as well as miners at the Westmoreland Poplar River Mine. (Miners at the Westmoreland Estevan Mine are represented by United Mine Workers of America.) As a result, IBEW members aren’t just those who process the coal and generate the electricity, but also includes the coal miners in Coronach at Poplar River Mine.
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The NDP suggest converting the coal plants to natural gas-fired operations. This has been done with several of Alberta’s coal-fired power stations.
Hoste, who is a millwright by trade, said, “A big part of that workforce is mining, coal handling, ash handling, these all go away with Grid and Growth Plan. So that’s a lot of jobs. Switching coal to gas and renewables does not replace jobs on a 1 to 1 basis. I personally know quite a few coal workers from Alberta who lived through their phase out, and I can say that it was an extremely stressful time in those peoples lives. Many workers from the coal mines who were let go ended up going to either the oil and gas sector, which tends to keep a person away from home a lot, or had to commute to remote mines elsewhere. These people went from having amazing careers where they came home to their families every night (or morning) to travelling to a camp to support their families. They should ask some of the affected workers in Alberta what that was like.”
“A big part of what we do within the coal plants is getting the coal into the plant, processing it, crushing it, pulverizing it, getting it into the boiler for combustion. And not only that, once it’s been burnt, you’ve got to get that ash out of the boiler and disposed of, too. And there’s a lot of jobs, a lot of positions that go with that.”
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Asked if that’s crappy work, Hoste said, “I would disagree. I’ve been working in coal most of my career. Is it hard work and dirty work? Yes. Having spent 15 years at the coal mine and 9 at the power plant, I have done those jobs, my people do those jobs, and you’re not going to talk to too many people that don’t love their job out there and aren’t proud of their job. You know, working in coal, working in ash, they love their jobs as much as anybody else out there. Every one of our members plays a huge role in getting electricity to the grid”
These are the numbers of coal jobs in Saskatchewan, according to the Saskatchewan First Energy Security Strategy and Supply Plan, released on Oct. 20, 2025.
Put another way, depending on which document you look at from the provincial government, either 1,100 or 1,400 direct jobs are related to coal-fired power generation between the two mines and three power plants to produce approximately 1,500 megawatts of power. It would take four power plants the size of the 370 megawatt Moose Jaw Great Plains Power Station to create the same amount of power. But each of those natural gas-fired power stations would have a permanent workforce of 25 full time employees apiece.
And if you read the Sunshine list showing SaskPower employee remuneration, most of those jobs pay $100,000 or more. Some are a lot more.
So where are the jobs for producing natural gas? In Alberta, as Saskatchewan has drilled five targeted natural gas wells over the past decade, and according to numbers from the Alberta government, Alberta drills that many natural gas wells during the busy season by 4 a.m., today, if they started at midnight.
Hoste said, “I think one thing that we need, especially in this day and age, we need energy security and natural gas as we as we all know, can be a very volatile market. If the price of natural gas goes up, and we’re largely dependent on natural gas power generation, its easy to see that your rates are going to go up. Coal is mined locally, the price is stable, it’s burned a few miles from the plant. You’re not transporting it hundreds of miles like you are with gas. That’s true energy security. We don’t have to get it from another jurisdiction who could potentially limit supply or raise rates as they see fit.”
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Hoste noted that at Poplar River, for instance, if it were converted to natural gas, one crew could potentially operate both units. The workforce that handles the coal and ash would be gone, and if you look at the workforce model of the new gas plants, maintenance staff would also potentially be reduced.
The NDP’s plan has Hoste thinking of a worst-case scenario, that shutting down coal would be sooner than later if they were in power.
Hoste said the IBEW members aren’t panicking yet, with an expectation the Sask Party would win the next provincial election. “But you know the threat is there that someone in government, if elected, could destroy our livelihoods.”
“Optimism is high in this moment, because due to the current government’s good decisions, we’re putting a lot of work into getting some of these older units refurbished. You know, for example, Unit 4 ran just the other day, after being mothballed for a long time. That was a huge accomplishment that our members worked very hard on and a huge step forward in the in the coal refurbishment plan.”
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Editor’s note: What’s this all about? Here are the related stories which Pipeline Online spent 11 hours-plus typing, while CTV’s story was 53 seconds long. Maybe that’s because some people’s jobs, livelihoods and homes are more important to some people than others.