Press Release: SES calls on the Sask. Gov. to reinstate the OBPS Program

PRESS RELEASE
Saskatchewan Environmental Society
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
For immediate release

The Saskatchewan Environmental Society calls on the Government of Saskatchewan to reinstate the Output-Based Performance Standards Program

The Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES) is strongly opposed to the Government of Saskatchewan’s decision to cancel industrial carbon pollution pricing effective today, April 1, 2025. “The cancellation of the Output-Based Performance Standards Program on industrial greenhouse gas pollution in Saskatchewan leaves a gaping hole in Saskatchewan’s climate change strategy, Prairie Resilience,” says Peter Prebble, SES board member. “It also brazenly violates federal law and undermines Canada’s commitment to the rest of the world to reduce nation-wide greenhouse gas pollution 40% by 2030.”

Under the Output-Based Performance Standards (OBPS) Program, big emitters only pay for greenhouse gas emissions that go above a certain threshold. Thus, the OBPS Program creates incentives to cut emissions while keeping costs low for businesses. Large-emitter pollution pricing systems across Canada, like the OBPS Program in Saskatchewan, are projected to be responsible for more than one quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emission reduction over the next five years. It is this system—which is working well across Canada—that the Government of Saskatchewan is clearly attempting to undermine. While our provincial government does so, it will also be losing a critically important revenue source, thus driving Saskatchewan into deeper debt.

Cancelling industrial carbon pollution pricing in Saskatchewan will create uncertainty for businesses and for investors who were planning clean technology investments. It could also undermine Saskatchewan exports to trading partners such as the European Union, which is bringing in carbon border adjustment tariffs to penalize jurisdictions with high greenhouse gas emissions, while giving low-carbon industrial producers a competitive advantage.

The abandonment of industrial carbon pollution pricing is not the only unwise step the Saskatchewan government has taken in recent weeks to undermine good climate change policy. In January, Premier Moe’s government signalled its plans to keep Saskatchewan’s conventional coal-fired power plants running well past 2030, in violation of federal law. Coal is the most polluting of all the fossil fuels. Alberta completed the phase out of coal-fired power stations last year. Ontario finished the job a decade ago. Saskatchewan is the only province refusing to comply with the 2030 deadline. And in February, the Saskatchewan government backtracked on its commitment to make new buildings more energy efficient. It has reverted to the very lowest standard in Canada’s energy efficiency performance tiers for low-rise residential buildings. Saskatchewan’s move will increase greenhouse gas emissions in the residential home sector and increase operating costs for homeowners.

In taking these regressive steps, Premier Scott Moe and his government are ignoring the realities of climate change and the threat it poses to the future of humanity. In recent years, Saskatchewan has faced record drought and record forest fires. Extreme weather events are also on the rise across Canada and around the world, with devastating human consequences. Climate change will cause a global food and water crisis of unprecedented proportions if it is not urgently addressed.

“Sadly, Premier Moe’s government is ignoring all these distress signals of impending climate disaster. Saskatchewan already has one of the very highest per capita greenhouse gas pollution levels in the world,” says Glenn Wright, SES board member. “With the policy changes of the last three months, Premier Moe is making Saskatchewan’s reputation on matters of the environment worse than ever.”

The Saskatchewan Environmental Society calls on the Government of Saskatchewan to reverse course and reinstate the Output-Based Performance Standards Program, with a greenhouse gas pollution price on the industrial sector that maintains alignment with other provinces. The Saskatchewan Environmental Society also calls on the provincial government to move forward with improved energy efficiency standards on new buildings and to comply with federal law by phasing out all conventional coal-fired power stations in this province by 2030.

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