Meili’s green plan should start a good discussion

At first glance, New Democrat Opposition Leader Ryan Meili’s “Renew Saskatchewan” doesn’t seem like a big idea.

Meili’s outline for his green strategy unveiled at the Saskatchewan NDP’S annual convention 10 days ago didn’t address the carbon tax, or even detail by how much greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be reduced. Really, it doesn’t seem much more than a glorified home energy efficiency program.

But before we write it off, let’s consider what is and isn’t working in the battle for the environment.

While the big idea of pumping out $1.5 billion for carbon capture and storage at coal plants doesn’t exactly seem to be panning out for the Saskatchewan Party government, it’s likely not getting enough credit for a growing number of green initiatives. They include: the Chinook natural gas project near Swift Current; Environment Minister Dustin Duncan’s Power Generation Partner Program (PGPP) that allows customers to sell back to Saskpower energy from renewable sources like solar, wind and even flare gas; and the solar project with Cowessess First Nations.

While it might not be completely fair to classify these ideas as “small”, they do fit the narrative that the big environment ideas these days may very well be a collection of really good small ideas worth considering.

Sure, Meili’s Renew Saskatchewan needs to be fleshed out when it comes to costs to taxpayers and — perhaps more critically — how we can effectively entice the public to buy into what seems to be largely a loan program that the NDP leader expects businesses and people to fund themselves.

But as we are about to start another legislative sitting that will likely be dominated by more carbon pricing squabbling, doesn’t this topic sound like it could potentially result in a more productive conversation? Wouldn’t it even dovetail nicely into Duncan’s own Prairie Resilience Climate Change Strategy?

In an interview last week, Meili explained that his concept borrowed generously from Saskatchewan political history by using both the Rural Electrification Program and Family Farm Improvement as models of how the province could help bring affordable green energy to not only farms but community rinks and other buildings, businesses and even urban homes on a similar grand scale.

While farmers would have the added incentive of selling wind or solar power energy back to Saskpower’s grid (as per what Duncan is already thinking about), the urban focus would likely be more on investing in more energy-efficient homes and even neighbourhoods. “We’re still losing a lot of energy,” Meili said.

Meili said he has extensively met with planners, engineers and environmentalists, whose contributions will be to continue to help flesh out his ideas. Newly elected Regina Northeast MLA Yens Pedersen will take the political lead in his new roles as the Opposition’s environment and agriculture critic.

Costs are the big question. Why people would be motivated to borrow money to go green — even if they were paying it back on future power bills — is a very valid question.

After all, what differs between what Meili is suggesting now and rural electrification 60 years ago is that farmers and others aren’t receiving something that’s going to immediately and massively improve their quality of life.

However, Meili insists he envisions his program to exist with a self-sustaining pool of money that people contribute to through paying back their loans. Unfortunately, history also tells us the take-up on such a provincewide program is high when there is a free money involved. Consider the last such success in grand home improvement we saw in this province — the popular but extremely costly 1986 7-7-7 program, which offered $7,000 grants and seven-per-cent guaranteed mortgage costs for as much as $70,000.

All this said, what Meili and Duncan both seem to be talking about is smaller, locally generated power projects.

This would avoid costly megaprojects in the corners of the province that result in losing vast quantities of power by transporting it great distances over a grid.

The more ideas we have and the more we talk about them, the better off we will all be.