REGINA – The Opposition says the Saskatchewan’s government promise to be transparent is going up in smoke on a carbon capture project, but the province says that’s not the case.
New Democrat Cathy Sproule claims the government is withholding documents and details that were promised six weeks ago on the carbon capture facility at the Boundary Dam power plant in Estevan.
“This is a $1.5 billion tax payer paid project, and right now it’s bleeding cost, $17 million last year alone in repair costs, plus a $7 million penalty to Cenovus for last year, which was higher than they expected,” Sproule said.
In a letter sent to Minister Responsible for the SaskPower Bill Boyd on January 20, Sproule outlined 14 issues surrounding the plant the opposition are seeking information on. These include travel expenses from November, 2015 to the present and what led to a plant outage in January, 2015.
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SaskPower and the government faced criticism last year from the Opposition for boasting that the plant was fully operational.
Documents leaked to the NDP showed the facility had been working 45 per cent of the time.
But the government says the carbon capture unit operated 100 per cent of the time in January and is on track to capture 800,000 tonnes of CO2 this year.
The government also says it has agreed to reconvene a legislative committee before the election for further hearings on the Boundary Dam project, which the NDP has requested. The government is also working with SaskPower to gather documents requested by the NDP.
With files from David Baxter
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