When our Sask Party government first passed the Saskatchewan First Act, it seemed to be nothing more than an act of petulance, or just another day in the power struggle between two governments when the lower branch of power can’t properly manage its finances.
In enacting the SFA, all the provincial government has done is turn this province into an “Opposition of One” standing in the way of Canada developing a national plan of action on climate change and global warming concerns and making our citizens out to be nothing more than scientific illiterates denying the reasons why California’s summers are marked by massive fire destruction (as is now the case in our north) or that the east coast of the United States will be spending the next two weeks thawing out, and then unburying their regular modes of getting to work.
When Canada signed the Paris Accord in 2016, most of us assumed that climate change denialism had gone the way of the dodo; however when the feds introduced their first plan of action in dealing with the problem in the form of the 2018 “Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act”, it had to literally warn an intransigent Saskatchewan government that if the province did not produce a plan for climate action as had most of the other provinces, it would become subject to the terms of this legislation, which meant we’d then have to contribute to carbon tax levies. Instead, the Moe government challenged the “right” of the federal government to impose the tax in court, and lost – in effect costing our already overstressed taxpayers some $62 million in experimental project development, some $500,000 for “outside” legal assistance, a further four to ten times that amount for the government’s own legal services.
As I pointed out in last week’s column, this province is in crisis meltdown. We are currently managing to survive despite running a $39.8 billion deficit, have added some $11 billion to SaskPower’s debt load “experimenting” with carbon gas capture and storage at the Boundary Dam Site 3 coal-fired generating station, and must either add another $8 billion to the budget in order to provide the same capability to coal-fired reactors at Poplar River, Shand and Boundary Dam, or shut them down in 2030 under the terms specified in the GGPPA.
Incidental to these factors, yet still important for us to consider, is the intrusion of a court case that last week I asked readers to familiarize themselves with. It was reported in the Herald in its Oct. 21 edition, titled “Judge shuts down Saskatchewan climate action lawsuit”. The story was reporting on an Oct. 10 King’s Bench case in which Madame Justice Holli Kuski Bassett decided to strike down the right of a citizen’s group and Climate Justice Saskatoon to seek an end to the Saskatchewan government providing even more energy from either constructing or refurbishing coal or gas-fired power plants. While she acknowledged that while environmental protection issues remain important, since the legal principles involved in the case had yet to be considered in law, namely air quality and pollution concerns as they relate to the sequestering of carbon gases, the presenter (CJS) must first seek remediation in legislation under the principles of “democratic accountability”.
For the SFA to insist upon Saskatchewan having control of economic policy within its own borders ignores the legal precedents already established in the “Love Canal” environmental suit portrayed by Julia Roberts Oscar-winning performance in “Erin Brockovich”. Environmental disasters are almost never confined to a province’s political boundaries, and its legal application of sole jurisdictional authority is thereafter relegated to either federal or international courts.
It is almost impossible to believe that the Saskatchewan government, in including project “emissions” as a portion of its jurisdictional review processes under terms of the SFA, could not foresee the possibility of such action being taken against its minimalistic approach to having SaskPower power generating sites better control its output of carbon gases, especially when the production of air pollutants are so markedly linked to respiratory illnesses in particular. The Saskatchewan Party, however, has never been short of individuals all too willing to ridicule those who oppose its political agenda, and take to the Disinformation Highway to do so.
Brian Zinchuk, a resident of Estevan with heavy ties to the Saskatchewan Party (his co-partner host on his podcast “Pipeline Online” is Bronwyn Eyre, a law graduate who never practiced law, but was once Moe’s Minister of Justice) has gleefully stepped up as the unofficial mouthpiece. First of all, he applauded Madame Justice Barrett’s decision, as otherwise this would have meant that “three power plants, two coal mines, three communities (Estevan, Bienfait and Coronach), and 1,100 direct jobs” would have suffered its negative consequences. Next, he took a few shots at the litigants of the CJS suit, wondering in ridicule as to “whether a 12 year old student, a 55 year old university student who hosts an environmental podcast, and a farmer activist who is neither an Saskatchewan resident nor a SaskPower customer, along with two environmental groups, can reverse a decision made by said democratically-elected government”, then flailing case legal counsel Glenn Wright as “a professional engineer-turned lawyer” and a “five-time unsuccessful political candidate” just sitting around and “awaiting an opportunity to take the Saskatchewan government to court over environmental policy regarding coal”.
Unfortunately for Mr. Zinchuk, his portrayal of Mr. Wright as a political opportunist are neither supported by his academic record nor that of the constituents of the ridings in which he ran – usually second only to a far more conservative candidate offered up by either the national Conservative or the Sask Parties. As a successful small farmer who runs most of his operation utilizing solar energy, he is constantly bombarded by even his most conservative neighbours querying his methods in order to incorporate his ideas into their own operation. As for his having been a “professional engineer turned lawyer”, he holds a Master’s degree in an Engineering field that most academics will concede are even more complex and demanding of even a general practitioner, and spent most of his time as an Engineer honing his environmental knowledge working in the uranium industry.
As for the litigants themselves, Mr. Zinchuk’s comments are almost sickeningly childish. We all are aware that the Saskatchewan Party will gleefully accept membership funds from a 12-year-old child, yet allows them no say as to policy, even IF that same child may suffer from asthma or a lung-related illness. Then, there’s also this “tree hugging” environmental podcaster who just happens to also be a 55-year-old university student STILL interested in learning, and is making it a point to further explore the nature of environmental concerns, such as those U.S. eastern coast Americans wondering what the Hell is happening to them with this now two-week barrage of cold weather and snow measured in feet instead of inches.
Lastly, there’s that Manitoba “activist farmer” who isn’t even “a SaskPower customer”, but was most certainly one of the very FIRST recipients of the smoke disaster that was last summer’s fire season that just happened to also force authorities in The Big Smoke (Toronto) to warn its 5 million citizens at least four times last year to limit their outdoor activities if they had respiratory health concerns.
In short, could Madame Justice Bassett have been more of a “judicial activist” and demand that the Moe government address its “democratic accountability” shortfalls, and then let the case proceed?
Let’s wait until some overly ambitious American lawyer looking for his next big score takes this same case before a U.S. court before we answer that question…
Ken MacDougall is a retired school teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP.
