It was an announcement to tell us there would soon be an announcement.
That was the impression left with the media when federal Environment Minister Peter Kent arrived on our doorstep last Friday for a media conference and general meeting with SaskPower, provincial and local officials. They all arrived at Boundary Dam, expecting to hear some defining statements regarding new regulations regarding coal-fired power plants.
What we heard was that the regulations are still pending, but the first draft of the proposed rules will be released this coming weekend.
To be fair though, Kent was forthcoming and clear on the subjects he was able to talk about, including a little speculation as to what these new regulations will entail.
We also knew beforehand that what he was about to talk about couldn't be that negative to the coal-fueled power plant industry because he was choosing to make the announcement on their turf. No politician would come to a power plant in pre-announced fashion to inform the gathering that their jobs were in jeopardy.
The fact that the Boundary Dam Unit 3 pilot project is the first of its kind in the world was not lost on Kent or those who had gathered to hear what he had to say about the future of greenhouse gas reduction.
The environment minister was quick to point out that Saskatchewan was playing a huge leadership role on this section of the environmental file so it was encouraging to see, and hear, the acknowledgement from one who is playing the major role.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Canada will be soft-pedalling the greenhouse gas emissions question for a few years because we don't want to be out-of-sync with our American counterparts. This makes sense from a North American perspective. We should be on the same page, if at all possible, on this important topic and unfortunately right about now, greenhouse gases and environmental cleanup is about No. 38 on the Americans' priority list. They have social, political and financial Armageddon type issues to clean up first before they can return their attention to the environmental files. So we'll wait.
We learned our lesson a few decades back when we were pushed into the metric conversion game by a harried Pierre Trudeau while the Americans pretty well ignored the topic. As a result we live with a separate weights and measures regime that causes all kinds of consternation when it comes to Canadian/American trade and transportation exchanges.
We've both since learned how to cope quite efficiently, but that lesson was costly. There is no need for Canada to race toward a whole different set of measurements when it comes to the greenhouse gas issue now. It's better to plod along and be sure-footed than race into the new regime and make it up as we go along.
Kent pointed out how the sector-by-sector steps would work and the allocated time lines are becoming a lot clearer, so his visit to the Energy City was not a wasted venture.
The message that could be delivered was clear and it was concise and the bottom line indicated that coal-fired power plants have a solid future in Saskatchewan for decades to come and that will allow us to breathe a bit easier in more ways than one.
