Each year we celebrate Saskatchewan Mining Week. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the impact the mining industry has on this province and our economy.
Normally there would be events and luncheons in different communities that celebrate the industry. And there would be the culmination of Mining Week with the Emergency Response/Mine Rescue Skills Competition, which shows a different component of the abilities that these miners have.
Mining Week will have a different look this year, as like so many other events in the community, it’s going virtual for the activities and luncheons. The mine rescue competition is cancelled, but the dedicated mine rescue team members are still practising so that they’re ready if their skills are needed.
This year’s theme of Mining: Essential to Local and Global Communities still rings true.
We’ll hear a lot about potash and uranium, and for good reason; Saskatchewan is a world leader in the production of both minerals. But there is so much more to mining in Saskatchewan beyond those two commodities, including coal.
Despite the objections of some, coal is still a big part of mining in this province. Critics call it dirty. But it’s also a consistently reliable source of electricity. Coal-fired power isn’t reliant on the sun or wind. It’s not prone to wild cost fluctuations like natural gas.
When it comes to a source of baseload power, coal is still the safest bet.
We can’t plan to use it as a means to produce power like we have in the past; conventional coal causes too many emissions, and within the next decade, conventional coal likely won’t be a source of power in Canada.
But we’ve seen that carbon capture and storage does work, that it can eliminate most of the emissions associated with coal power, and still keep this fuel source in the equation. It will just be in a different way than what it did in the past.
Carbon capture and storage should be the solution to keep mining essential to this local community and other communities in the southeast region.
And given the environmental benefits of carbon capture and storage, it allows mining to be essential to global communities.
Mining is also a source of jobs for people and enormous economic benefits for communities and for provinces, for our country and our world.
In the case of coal mining, critics say that we can just phase it out, and send those who work in the mines to be retrained so they can work at other jobs. Green jobs. What they don’t realize is the source of pride that miners take in their job.
Critics also don’t realize that coal miners recognize the value of what they do for this province. Miners know they are responsible for getting a product to market that allows the rest of us to turn the lights on, run our air conditioners in the summer, heat our homes in the winter and plug in our vehicles when it’s -40 C outside.
The hundreds of people who work in the mines in the Estevan area are hard-working people who earn their wages. They’re well-paid, but they’re doing important work, and they’re doing it with a great emphasis on safety while heeding environmental regulations.
These people are volunteering in their community and involved with organizations and doing their part to make this area better.
If you live in the Estevan area, and you don’t think your life is enriched by the mines, then you’re wrong.
Take the mines out of the picture, and there would be a hit to every part of the community. We’d have fewer people living here, fewer students in our schools and less money circulating our community. We’d have fewer businesses, and the business that would remain would have fewer customers.
Mining is essential to our community. We’re not the only community to reap the economic spinoffs of mining, either.
The royalties from mining are also a big part of the province’s economy. Mining, much like agriculture and the oil and gas sector, plays a big role in our success.
During the past few months, there has been a lot of talk about essential services and who should fit into that category and who doesn’t. There’s hasn’t been enough talk about how mining is essential. But it is.
For us in the southeast, we know while there is a Saskatchewan Mining Week each year, we need to treat every week as Mining Week.
