Sask. environmental group files notice of appeal in coal power extension case

A group of Saskatchewan environmentalists has filed an appeal after losing a legal challenge in January.

The Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES), Citizens for Public Justice and three residents previously asked for a judicial review of the province’s decision to refurbish and extend the life of the coal-fired plants 20 years past the federal phase-out deadline for coal-generated power.

Saskatchewan is the only province in Canada extending the use of coal to generate electricity. Every other province has already either phased out coal — like Ontario and Alberta — or committed to doing so by 2030.

The Jan. 12 Court of King’s Bench decision ruled it was not the court’s role to review the Saskatchewan government’s decision, calling it a fundamentally public policy.

“The courts are not designed to manipulate the nuts and bolts of government action with a view to achieving policy ends,” Justice Shawn Smith stated in the ruling.

Now, the group is taking a second shot at a judicial review of the decision, stating that the Court of King’s Bench dismissed the case without allowing the full legal arguments to be heard.

"Saskatchewan’s decision to extend coal-fired power generation is not an abstract policy decision," the SES said in a media release.

"It involves concrete administrative actions, including plans to spend almost one billion dollars retrofitting aging coal-fired power stations with the explicit intention of operating them well beyond December 31, 2029 — the date by which federal law requires all conventional coal-fired power plants in Canada to cease operations."

The retrofitted plants are intended to operate into the 2040s. This adds fuel to the group's appeal, the SES said.

"To us, the policy decision related to the coal-burning power plants is the provincial decision to get off carbon fuel power by 2050. And that's clearly a policy decision and it has no underpinnings of how they're going to get there," SES vice president Bob Halliday told CBC on Thursday.

The group is asking the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal to allow the case to proceed to a full hearing.

"If we're trying to be carbon-free as a planet by 2050, and we're not going to get off coal-fired electricity until 2050, that's a hard circle to square," Halliday said.

"So we have to move ahead on clean electricity much, much more in advance. That's one of the driving forces as to why we have to do this now."

In a prepared statement, the provincial government said it's putting the people of the province first.