Saskatchewan rejects Clean Electricity Regulations, will extend refusal on collecting home heating carbon tax

“We will not be adhering to these. I want to be very, very clear.” – SaskPower Minister Jeremy Harrison on Clean Electricity Regulations

REGINA – Things are about to heat up with the impending federal Clean Electricity Regulations, with the final version expected to be released any day now, and Saskatchewan’s new Minister of Crown Investments Corporation and SaskPower proclaiming Tuesday evening this province will not acknowledge them.

Not only that, but Saskatchewan has a new sacrificial minister to be hung on the carbon tax cross, or more succinctly, to land in carbon tax jail, as a bill was introduced on Dec. 3 to extend the refusal to collect the federal carbon tax on natural gas home heating via SaskEnergy.

Minister of Crown Investments Corporation and SaskPower Jeremy Harrison took the occasion of his reply to the Speech from the Throne to firmly stake Saskatchewan’s stance. Usually throne speeches aren’t newsworthy policy speeches, as Harrison, himself, pointed out. But he was responding to a PostMedia article that day entitled “SaskPower lacks clear plan to address missed net-zero targets.”

The article noted a provincial auditor report referring to the CER, with the StarPhoenix reporting, “‘SaskPower may need to adjust its pathway once the Clean Electricity Regulations are finalized,’ the report states.”

Harrison was blunt, saying “I can tell you this: we are not going to be meeting the Justin Trudeau Clean Electricity Regulation targets by 2035. In fact, we aren’t going to be even working to meet the clean electricity regulations, because this is an area that is completely provincial jurisdiction.”

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He cited Section 92 A(1)(c) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which states, “In each province, the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to … development, conservation and management of sites and facilities in the province for the generation and production of electrical energy.”

He pointed out how this was a critical point pushed by then-Saskatchewan Premier Allen Blakely and then-Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed in constitutional negotiations, with electricity explicitly being included.

“Fast forward to the last number of years, Steven Guilbeault, we have Justin Trudeau, a number of other federal ministers who obviously are involved in this as well. But what did they do? They said, ‘Well, we are going to assert that we have the authority to regulate and legislate in the area of electricity generation.’

We’ve been very clear in saying, ‘We do not recognize your authority to do any of those things in this area.’ Basically, we don’t care. We’re going to press ahead anyway. And they published on the Clean Electricity Regulations after, after having undertaken, you know, in my view, very limited consultation, for sure, not with us, maybe with with others who have a different view of the world, but they sure didn’t listen to even our consult, even our submissions that were made after the setting of the first round of the CER, which are disastrous, I can tell you. They are absolutely catastrophic. If we were to adopt the Clean Electricity Regulations, literally 70% of our electricity generation by 2035 would be illegal. Turn off the right lights, because 70% of our power would be gone. Gone!

And this is what Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault and Jagmeet Singh’s plan is for how electricity should be regulated as we go forward, I can tell you this: as a policy of the government of Saskatchewan, we are not, and these are going to be gazetted potentially as soon as tomorrow. We don’t actually know when the gazetted second round of the regs are coming up, but in the next couple of weeks. I can tell you this: we are not going to be adhering to them because we do not recognize the legitimacy of the federal government bringing them forward.”

“And you know, we’re going to have some more to say on that when the when the regs are published, we will have some more in depth commentary will come from for me, but also from senior officials at CIC and SaskPower as well. And we will talk about why these regulations are so incredibly catastrophic and would be so incredibly catastrophic, almost uniquely catastrophic, to the province of Saskatchewan. In addition to nationally being unattainable. We will not be adhering to these I want to be very, very clear.”

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Harrison took some umbrage to the StarPhoenix article referring to a “government spokesperson,” when it was in fact he, the minister, who sent it to them.

“The other thing I want to say, and talking about what the future of SaskPower is going to look like going forward, and I want to be very clear about how we are going to be looking about the future of power generation here in this province, it’s going to be through two lenses, two lens: affordability and reliability. Those are the two lenses that we are going to be viewing future power generation decisions through, because we fully believe that the people of this province deserve to have electricity, their bills delivered at the lowest possible rate.

“And further to that, we believe that this is a area where we could have a genuine competitive advantage as we transition into nuclear in the longer term. How do we get there? We need to make sure that we have the lowest cost electricity that can possibly be produced in this jurisdiction for individuals and for businesses going forward. And I really do believe, in a very positive way, that Saskatchewan can be an energy powerhouse located in the center of North America. I think we have tremendous advantages that accrue to us being located where we are. I think we have advantages that could come through our location, as far as grid, grid locations, grid connections. I endeavor, and I think this government really endeavor, and we will be talking about this more to make Saskatchewan a central energy power house in North America,” Harrison said.

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New candidate for carbon tax jail

Earlier in the day the Saskatchewan Party government introduced a bill to continue Saskatchewan’s refusal to collect federal carbon tax on home heating natural gas via SaskEnergy. Harrison said, “We introduced a bill which was really a continuation. The first bill that we had passed on this, the Tax Fairness for Residents Bill had passed last year. It had a one year provision, or time period in which it was operative for this will extend that time period out into the future.

“And what that will do is make sure that Saskatchewan residents are not paying carbon tax on home heating. And in order to do this, what we essentially did was adopt the distributor of natural gas job from SaskEnergy to the minister, and along with becoming the distributor of SaskEnergy, taking any Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh liability that would accrue with that, and putting it on for the minister. So I want to thank Minister Duncan for previously volunteering to go to carbon jail. I now am told that I could be going to carbon jail. My wife would be happy with that.

“But you know, these are, these are things that we, made very considered decisions and go down these paths and something that we very much are doing because we genuinely believe that nobody in this province, and frankly, nobody in the country, we’re not going to we’re not going to let off the gas until this carbon tax is not being charged on any individual in any place in any part of Canada.”

Harrison spoke of how now-Premier Scott Moe, when he was previously Minister of the Environment, walked out of a meeting of ministers across the nation meant to implement the carbon tax.

“He left. He told them that this was not something that was on for Saskatchewan. We were in complete opposition to it. And he left. And we were told, by the folks opposite that this was a hopeless crusade. That we needed to get on board. That anything that we did was a waste of time. And they said it over and over and over and stood up in their place. Why won’t you get on board with Justin Trudeau? Over and over and over again? These are demonstrable facts. These are demonstrable facts. We were the only jurisdiction in Canada that opposed this all the way.”

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What impact will the Clean Electricity Regulations have?

Those Clean Electricity Regulations, if implemented in their current form, could literally leave Saskatchewan and Alberta residents freezing in the dark. They strongly encourage implementation of wind and solar while all but banning natural gas-fired power generation (coal without carbon capture will be banned by 2030 anyhow). At noon on Sunday, Dec. 1, Alberta’s 1722 wind turbines were producing 0.007 per cent of their nameplate capacity, as reported by Pipeline Online on Dec. 2. At that time, 94 per cent of Alberta’s power was coming from natural gas.

In that story, Pipeline Online noted the following:

So why is the 94.2 per cent of power coming from natural gas significant? According to the proposed federal Clean Electricity Regulations, by 2035, all fossil fuel-fired power, including natural gas, must have carbon capture units implemented, otherwise they will only be allowed to operated a total of 450 hours per year. That means by Jan. 19, it is quite possible that then entire allotment of “unabated” hours of operation will be used up. In this real world situation, in December, if those rules were in place today, they would have prohibited the production of 94.2 per cent of the power Albertans needed to fend off the -21 C temperatures. If implemented, those rules will come into full effect in 10 years and 29 days.

And the most likely prospect of commercial-scale carbon capture to be implemented on natural gas-fired power plant, Genessee, was canceled this past June. Thus, almost the entirety of the Alberta grid output on Dec. 1 will have to be replaced by power generation that doesn’t emit greenhouse gasses, or carbon capture installed on it, in those 10 years and 29 days.

As for Saskatchewan, SaskPower has committed to adding 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar by 2035, which is roughly the amount of power the entire Saskatchewan grid consumes on a fall day. On a colder day, such as Nov. 30, the grid generated an average of 3,369 megawatts over 24 hours. Between its wind and solar, Alberta has already installed more than double that – 7,288 megawatts combined of wind and solar, and as noted above, its output on a moderately cold day was 178.8 megawatts at noon, meaning that if Saskatchewan had built the equivalent of the 49 wind farms and 44 solar farms Alberta has built, it could still end up with less power available than just one coal-fired unit like Shand Power Station.

While Harrison noted that 70 per cent of Saskatchewan’s power could be impacted by the CER, in certain circumstances, the number is actually much higher. Pipeline Online has repeatedly reported SaskPower numbers indicating on cold days in winter, and especially when there’s next to no wind, up to 88 per cent of Saskatchewan’s power generation comes from natural gas and coal. Jan. 6, 2024, was one such day. Wind in Saskatchewan averaged just 47 megawatts out of 617, meaning natural gas and coal combined made up 88 per cent of power generation on that day, according to SaskPower.

UPDATES: Wednesday morning NDP MLA Aleana Young, critic for jobs and the economy, and SaskPower and previously energy critic, pointed out by email, “Don’t forget that the motion to stop collecting the carbon tax on home heating came from the Sask NDP and was unanimously supported by the SaskParty.”

Also, Premier Moe’s social media posted the following video by Harrison on Wednesday morning:

 

 

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