According to the Saskatchewan NDP, SaskEnergy’s annual report highlights the need to keep the province’s publicly owned Crown Corporations in the hands of the people of Saskatchewan. And SaskEnergy’s new furnace rebate, NDP Leader Ryan Meili says, underscores the need for a more robust and comprehensive incentive system to help families, businesses and producers transition to cleaner and higher-efficiency energy usage.
“Giving those who can afford a new furnace a rebate on part of the cost isn’t enough to get us where we need to go,” said NDP Leader Ryan Meili. “A furnace may not be the biggest bang for people’s buck, and most people won’t be able to afford the up-front cost. That’s why we continue to call for a comprehensive energy transition incentive plan we call Renew Saskatchewan.”
Renew Saskatchewan, the NDP’s energy transition plan, would create hundreds of good jobs and give families, producers, businesses and municipalities access to the best options to produce energy and retrofit existing buildings by providing an up-front loan that would be paid back out of the savings generated.
Meili noted that SaskEnergy posted a $60 million dividend in 2018-19, returning millions of dollars back to the people of Saskatchewan, and emphasized that this underscores how important it is to keep our Crowns public.
“With the recent sale of the Coleville and Kisbey Gas Plants to an out-of-province company, we know that this government is not afraid to sell off public assets that deliver millions of dollars to the public coffers,” said SaskEnergy Critic Danielle Chartier. “The track record of the Sask. Party selling off Crowns leaves us very concerned for their future, and in this annual report we see yet again just how important it is that we keep the Crowns in public hands.”