Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has been in Estevan on Saturday for a Saskatchewan Party regional meeting and a visit with supporters.
The regional meetings were held with representatives from the Estevan, Cannington, Last Mountain-Touchwood, Moosomin and Yorkton constituencies. A social is slated for Saturday evening.
Both served as an opportunity to thank delegates for their support.
In between the two meetings, Moe answered questions from local reporters on issues facing the province and the Estevan area, including the future of Units 4 and 5 at the Boundary Dam Power Station, and the proposed equivalency agreement with the federal government.
SaskPower announced earlier this year it would retire Units 4 and 5 at Boundary Dam. Without an equivalency agreement, they would come offline in 2019. An agreement would allow Unit 4 to remain online until 2021, and Unit 5 to stay online until 2024.
"Right now we have the federal equivalency agreement that we have sent in to the federal minister of the environment's office, and we're waiting for her signature,” said Moe.
“We're waiting for her approval so that we can move forward in what is the most affordable manner on behalf of all the people of the province, but also to move forward with respect to understanding that traditionally we've had a large part of our power source come from this Estevan area through coal mining.”
The agreement was sent in a few months ago. The government has been asking its federal counterparts to approve that agreement so that Saskatchewan can move forward with its power generation needs.
An equivalency agreement would not affect any potential decision on whether to retrofit the Shand Power Station or Unit 6 at Boundary Dam with carbon capture and storage technology.
Moe also discussed the price differential facing the Western Canadian oil patch. The price of oil for West Texas Intermediate oil was $70.97, as of Friday morning, while Western Canadian Select was at $20.47, for a differential of $50.50.
Moe believes that since the energy sector is affected, the issue isn't resonating to the degree that it should at the federal level.
"We have a disastrous oil differential that's costing the economy and the province of Saskatchewan. The latest figure is $7.4 billion a year. It's costing directly the Government of Saskatchewan about $500 million per year. If you put that in the perspective of the budget that we're trying to balance here in the province, it much more than offsets the immediate financial challenges that we have."
Next week's edition of the Mercury will have more on Moe’s visit.
