Despite softer federal clean electricity targets, Sask. government still opposed to regulations

The Saskatchewan government has not been persuaded by Ottawa's renewed clean electricity regulations, which it's still rejecting as a federal overstep into provincial jurisdiction.

Ottawa announced this week it will back away from its former goal of establishing a national net-zero electricity grid by 2035, a commitment that was made in the 2021 Liberal election platform but not firmly set in the clean energy draft regulations. It has now pushed that net-zero grid goal to 2050.

The regulations have been signed into law but won't be enforced until 2035.

Saskatchewan has opposed the regulations since they were first drafted in August 2023. Ontario and Alberta have also criticized the regulations.

"The government of Saskatchewan does not recognize the legality of the Clean Electricity Regulations and we're going to be proceeding on the basis that they are not legal," Jeremy Harrison, Saskatchewan's minister for the Crown Investments Corporation, said in an interview with CBC.

Its targets "are entirely unattainable, entirely unachievable and would add enormous cost to Saskatchewan ratepayers," he said.

Harrison said Saskatchewan will reduce emissions, potentially to net-zero, but in its own way. Nuclear power is one of the keys to that shift, given Saskatchewan does not have the same access to hydro power that other provinces do, he said.

Provinces makes constitutional argument

In a news release issued Wednesday, the provincial government pointed to a section of the Constitution Act that outlines provincial jurisdiction over exploration and use of non-renewable natural resources.

Whether the federal and provincial governments will argue the case in court is a decision Harrison said will be left to the federal government, which would have to prove the regulations' constitutionality, he said.

Dwight Newman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Saskatchewan, says the regulations appear to potentially be unconstitutional.

"There are situations where some overlap is allowed, but they seem to be regulating so directly the thing that's directly within provincial constitutional authority," he said.

In an interview with CBC, the director of communications for federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault disagreed.

Oliver Anderson said the federal government ensured the regulations were constitutional when drafting them and is "absolutely confident" they are.

The regulations are not prescriptive by intention and are focused solely on the lowering of emissions, Anderson said, which he argued falls under federal jurisdiction. 

The decade-long gap between now and when the regulations come into effect gives Saskatchewan time to adapt to the changes, said Anderson.

Cost to Saskatchewan

He also said Ottawa made several changes to the regulations to accommodate Saskatchewan, including being more flexible with the use of fossil fuel energy in the grid, and extending the length of time before recently built fossil fuel plants have to abide by the rules — from 20 years to 25.

That would include plants like the recent SaskPower station near Moose Jaw, meaning it would have 25 years from completion before it has to comply with the new regulations.

After the draft regulations were released in 2023, a tribunal ordered to analyze the economic impact by the Saskatchewan government found that impact would be major.

The new rules would cost the province more than 4,000 jobs and stunt economic growth by at least $7.1 billion, according to the tribunal.

But Brett Dolter, an associate professor of economics at the University of Regina, says the results are misleading because of how they were calculated.

He also authored an analysis that compared the original draft energy regulations with more flexible restrictions. 

SaskPower and the Crown Investment Corporation provided feedback on the regulations, Dolter says, and he believes the majority of those concerns were addressed.

"I think, when I look at what they've done, that they've actually done a good job of listening to the concerns of provinces," he said.

There are also federal financial supports to keep rates low, said Dolter.

While the newly released rules are an updated version the federal government insists accommodate Saskatchewan's requests, Harrison says there have been no substantive changes, and disagrees the rules address SaskPower's concerns.

The provincial government will make decisions based on the reliability and affordability of the energy system, said Harrison — a concern he said is significant because of Saskatchewan's sub-zero winter temperatures and the need for reliable indoor heating.