Saskatchewan’s climate change and adaptation budget is going down. Last year it received nearly $4 million, this year it will see a $700,000 drop to $3.2 million.
However, Environment Minister Dustin Duncan this decrease is due to years of coming in under budget.
“This year’s budget more accurately represents the dollars we’ve spent over the last couple of years. I would also say we’ve reduced some contracts within the ministry that we’ve had in the past,” Duncan said.
“Because we’re developing our plan we know the work plan and the consultations and the amount of work it will take to develop the Prairie Resilience plan this year. I think we just had a better idea of the dollar amount we’re going to need.”
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Prairie Resilience is Saskatchewan’s climate change plan the province hopes Ottawa will see as a suitable alternative to carbon pricing. It will put in performance standards for heavy emitters.
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The ministry’s climate change branch’s mandate is to develop policy for the regulation of greenhouse gas, and measure the impact of climate change in Saskatchewan. It doesn’t operate programs.
This funding reduction worries environment critic David Forbes- especially when it comes to the province’s climate change goals and opposition to a federal carbon tax.
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“We have a question about this government taking the federal government to court, but at the same time they’re cutting the climate change branch by some 18 per cent,” Forbes said.
“When we look at the Prairie Resilience document we see a lot of ‘to be determined’. People are looking particularly in this budget year for those answers.”
Duncan says consultation with stakeholder groups is still ongoing, and more details will come in the summer.
The province did partially proclaim their Greenhouse Gas Management Act in December 2017. Duncan says a similar approach will likely be taken while unveiling a number of regulations for different industries.
Ottawa will be evaluating the provincial and territorial climate change plans in September. Plans that do not meet federal standards are expected to have the federal carbon price imposed upon them.
Premier Scott Moe has already said Saskatchewan will take Ottawa to Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeals over the matter.
Reforestation Budget
In the many statements opposing carbon tax coming from the provincial government, Saskatchewan’s forests acting as a carbon sink often come up.
At first glance, it’s curious the previously $300,000 reforestation budget is reduced to nothing this year. Duncan says that is good news.
“Beginning in the late 1980’s it was basically the taxpayers that paid when a tree was harvested. We paid to plant a new one,” Duncan explained.
“Ove the course of the last 20 years, the government has been slowly removing our obligation where last year was the last of the trees that we would need to plant.”
Going forward, the various companies working in the forestry industry will be responsible for replanting forests as trees are harvested. Under the terms of their licenses, a tree must be planted for every one cut down.