Letter to the Editor: SaskPower didn’t come up with its coal transition plans overnight

While I don’t disagree with this piece (Op-Ed: Saskatchewan Coal Transition Centre: Sabotaging our future: How SaskPower’s $1 billion scheme to import power from the U.S. will devastate Estevan and leave Saskatchewan’s economy vulnerable), it is clear that SaskPower and the Saskatchewan government are forging ahead with transitioning out of coal. In all the open houses, in any of the engagement with public the discussion has been managed to not include discussion on coal and CCS. The most recent example was with the open houses held in Estevan. They came here to showcase what will happen next. When asked about coal and CCS they couldn’t answer the questions. In my opinion, not because they don’t have the information, it is because they are not proceeding with it and they don’t want it. Again, my opinion, it’s a way to silence the noise around it. They have no plans on answering those questions until they need to. Their goal is to manage talent, keep some here so they can transition as needed. This transition, this plan, is not new for SaskPower. They undoubtedly had to have been working on transition plans for many years. These projects don’t just come up overnight.