To avoid another year of hundreds of millions of dollars being lost at SaskPower, the Sask. Party is now directly subsidizing the historic losses and mismanagement through other Crown profits. The annual report shows SaskPower posted a gross loss of $301 million — the largest loss in the Crown’s history — before receiving a provincial subsidy and a net loss of $114 million after the subsidy was applied.
The utility also increased its debt by nearly $1.2 billion in a single year, bringing total debt to $11.46 billion. Over the past five years, SaskPower's debt has increased by almost $3.8 billion, and its debt ratio has now increased to 78.9 per cent, exceeding its own long-term target range.
“Saskatchewan farms, families and small businesses are going to pay for generations to account for this historic mess created by Scott Moe, Jeremy Harrison and the Sask. Party,” said Aleana Young, Shadow Minister for Jobs, Economy & SaskPower. “The books at SaskPower are hundreds of millions in the red, again. And yet, these mavericks are doubling down on a power plan that even SaskPower has said will jack up rates, kill future renewable projects, drive down reliability, and sink us into debt.”
To cover a portion of SaskPower’s losses, the Sask. Party has diverted Crown dividends that would normally support public services and reduce debt and has redirected them to subsidize SaskPower's financial position.
"Every dollar of Crown profits that goes to pay for Harrison and Moe's mistakes is a dollar that cannot be used to make life more affordable for families, fix the crisis in healthcare, fund quality classrooms or make Saskatchewan communities safer,” Young said. “These decisions are shortsighted, backwards and everyday hardworking Saskatchewan people will pay dearly for them.
"The Sask. Party has put SaskPower and Saskatchewan ratepayers on an increasingly unaffordable path without providing people with a credible plan for how these costs will be managed.”
Saskatchewan families and businesses are already facing higher electricity costs now and much higher costs in the future. SaskPower has already implemented or applied for two rate increases of 3.9 per cent, representing a combined increase of approximately eight per cent over two years, and this is unlikely to even bring SaskPower back to a break-even position without further subsidies. All of this is occurring while the Sask. Party neglects to provide the Saskatchewan people with a comprehensive, long-term financing plan.
"There is no publicly available roadmap showing what these decisions will cost, how they will be financed, or what they mean for electricity bills over the next 10-20 years,” Young said. “We know that the coal catastrophe alone will effectively double power bills — and that may just be the start of the pain and suffering.
“Clearly, Saskatchewan people deserve better. They deserve a government that manages our Crowns and gets a quality return on our public investment like we used to. Scott Moe and Jeremy Harrison are running these once-proud public organizations into the ground. It’s time for change.”
Carla Beck’s team has presented their Grid and Growth Plan to keep power rates affordable and spur major investment in renewable energy and natural gas while carving a path for nuclear. In all, the plan will spur more than $31 billion in economic activity. Saskatchewan people are encouraged to visit GridandGrowth.ca for more details.
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