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Wall pleased with meeting
News Articles | Regina Leader-Post | James Wood | September 10, 2010
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Premier Brad Wall said Thursday he was pleased with a meeting with United States congressional leaders dominated by discussion of Saskatchewan’s oilsands potential and focus on carbon capture and storage projects.
In Ottawa a day earlier, Wall and Alberta premier Ed Stelmach were among those who met with Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rep. Ed Markey, who were in Canada to learn more about oilsands development.
With oil from Alberta’s tarsands projects increasingly coming under fire in the U.S. over its environmental impact, the meeting was viewed as significant.
“They’re engaged, they were well-briefed. And they truly, she said she was there to listen and that’s what she did. She asked some pointed questions about energy development, specifically on oilsands,” Wall said in interview.
Wall said Pelosi was aware that Saskatchewan did not currently have commercial oilsands development. Development in Saskatchewan would not be the large-scale open mining oilsands projects of northern Alberta that have caused the most controversy but rather smaller “in situ” wells that are also a cause for environmental concern.
Wall dismissed any danger of Saskatchewan being closely linked to Alberta on the oilsands issue in American perceptions.
“There are 10,000 square kilometres of oilsands potential so we also need to plan for the future. There needs to be the development of markets for the future,” he said.
The invitation from U.S. ambassador David Jacobson to meet Pelosi also demonstrated that Saskatchewan is increasingly understood as an “energy leader” in its own right, Wall added.
The premier said Pelosi was interested in Saskatchewan’s efforts on carbon capture. SaskPower is working on a $1.4-billion carbon capture retrofit of a unit at its Boundary Dam power station, although the project still needs to get a final go-ahead from the government this year. A proposed $270-million Saskatchewan-Montana project is in limbo at this point over federal funding issues.
Pelosi and Markey also met Thursday with representatives of Canadian environmental groups, including the Alberta-based Pembina Institute think tank. Pembina’s executive director, Marlo Raynolds, said in an interview he was struck by the seriousness with which the American politicians view the task of weaning their country from fossil fuels.
Raynolds said it is potentially problematic for Saskatchewan to be connected so closely to Alberta on energy and oilsands issues.
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