CONTENTS
Standing Committee on Crown and Central Agencies
Public Service
Commission Vote 33
Debt Redemption,
Sinking Fund and Interest Payments
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of
Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
Hansard
Verbatim Report
No.
4 — Wednesday, April 9, 2025
[The
committee met at 17:00.]
Chair
Steele: — Okay, we will get under
way, folks. Excuse me. I’ll get the tasers out; you’ve got to get in control
here. Okay, okay. Welcome, everyone. I’m Doug Steele. I’m the Chair for this
evening. Chris Beaudry, Terri Bromm, Hon. Lori Carr. Don McBean’s not here, so
okay, we’ll jump ahead. Erika Ritchie, and we have Nathaniel Teed, right?
Nathaniel, is that how you pronounce it? Okay. You’re subbing in for Jordan
McPhail. Okay, sir.
Okay. Tonight the committee
will be considering the estimates for the Public Service Commission. After a
recess from 7 to 7:30, the officials from Crown Investments Corporation will
join us for consideration of the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2
for the Debt Redemption, Sinking Fund and Interest Payments.
General Revenue Fund
Public Service Commission
Vote 33
Subvote (PS01)
Chair
Steele: — We will begin the 2025‑26
estimates for vote 33, Public Service Commission. Central management and
services, subvote (PS01).
Minister Harrison is here
with his officials. I will remind officials to identify themselves before they
take part in the discussion. Hansard will operate and turn on the mikes for
you. Minister, please give your opening remarks and introductions.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Sure. Well thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to members of the committee
for being here this evening. It’s appreciated. We look forward to a couple of
hours of discussion, and I am pleased to be here to provide additional
information on estimates for the Public Service Commission.
Before I start, I would like
to take a minute to introduce my officials. So here with me today I have Greg
Tuer, Chair of the Public Service Commission; Pat Bokitch, assistant Chair of
the Public Service Commission; Claudia Burke, assistant Chair of the Public
Service Commission; Jarret Boon, executive director, corporate services; and
Joella Moore, executive director, human resources service centre. I’d like to
thank these officials for being here today. Additionally I’ll acknowledge the
other commission officials that are standing by as needed to support with
answering questions.
The Public Service
Commission, we’ll refer to today as the PSC, is a central agency for
government. The PSC provides human resource services for executive government
as well as some agencies, boards, and commissions. This is important work to
recruit, retain, grow, and compensate Saskatchewan public servants.
The PSC has a strong focus on
addressing employee recruitment and retention challenges faced by ministries.
As you can appreciate, ensuring we have the right people in the right roles to
deliver on the growth plan initiatives is a top priority. The PSC has a
dedicated talent team to support ministries with their talent attraction and
recruitment needs. This includes well-thought-out hiring strategies for
hard-to-recruit roles.
The Government of
Saskatchewan currently has more than 11,000 employees to serve citizens across
our province. As a central human resource agency for government, the PSC
provides leadership, support, and policy direction to all ministries to enable
a high-performing and innovative professional public service.
We have human resource
business partner teams embedded within ministries to serve their human resource
needs. These teams bring HR [human resources] expertise and perspective to
specific ministry initiatives. This approach recognizes the unique business of
each ministry and ensures their HR professionals are fully integrated into
their business. Ultimately this positions them to provide strategic human
resources advice.
The PSC’s plan for 2025‑26
is consistent with previous years. The five areas of strategic priority remain
the same. They are effective leadership; high-performing organization;
representative workforce; health, safety and wellness; and the PSC being
engaged in high performing. These areas position the PSC to meet the strategic
human resource priorities of government.
With a tight labour market,
the work of the PSC is more critical than ever. PSC’s plan is aligned with the
growth plan to ensure government has the workforce needed to deliver on
provincial priorities to meet the needs of citizens.
PSC provides this support to
the Government of Saskatchewan through payroll and benefits administration;
consulting support for labour relations, organizational development, employee
recruitment and development, compensation and classification, and leading
collective bargaining on behalf of the Government of Saskatchewan.
Our priority, effective
leadership, is about ensuring the Government of Saskatchewan has the leadership
required to deliver on our commitments. Effective leaders provide clear
direction, inspire and engage employees to perform at their best, and achieve government
goals safely and efficiently.
This involves recruitment of
strong leaders and ensuring senior leaders are well supported and positioned to
succeed. The PSC has well-established training and supports in place to build
strong teams and leaders, such as the executive education program, middle
manager excellence program, and leadership development programs.
Our second focus is creating
a high-performing organization. High-performing organizations are built
intentionally, not by chance. The PSC supports this by proactively recruiting
for critical and hard-to-fill positions; implementing government’s multi-year
employee learning strategy; ensuring managers have the necessary resources,
tools, and supports to be effective in their roles. Our goal is to have
engaged, productive employees who feel valued and appreciated. This is measured
every second year by the government-wide employee engagement and culture
survey.
The third strategic goal is
building a representative workplace. We recognize that this objective enhances
our public service. It enables us to better understand and meet the needs of
our citizens.
The fourth area of focus in
our plan is health, safety, and wellness. Productive employees are healthy
employees, both physically and mentally. We strive to provide a safe working
environment where employees are supported to do their best work.
Our fifth area of focus is
ensuring the PSC is engaged and high performing. We’re focused on a one-team
approach to client service, culture, and decision making. To be high
performing, we are ensuring the PSC has the people and tools needed to complete
our plan. This includes preparing for the implementation of a new
government-wide solution for an integrated financial, human resource, and
procurement system. The new system will be called government enterprise
management, or GEM.
GEM will be a key tool to the
PSC’s continued success. The modernized system will adjust current business
systems that are reaching end of life, are costly to maintain, and require
significant manual effort and duplication of work. It will integrate the systems
for HR functions like time card entry, payroll financials, updating employee
information and benefits information, and applying for jobs with the Government
of Saskatchewan. It’s a big project that requires planning, preparation, and
appropriate resources to be successful.
An important priority for the
Public Service Commission this year will be readying the people and processes
for GEM. The organization is taking lessons learned from similar projects to
ensure success. This includes hiring temporary resources to support clients
across government as they adjust through the implementation of the new system
and accompanying process changes. This ensures ministries have the support they
need for a smooth transition, allowing them to continue to focus on delivering
programs and services to the people of Saskatchewan.
In the past year, PSC made
significant progress on many of our planned initiatives. The Public Service
Commission is committed to supporting the recruitment and retention of
qualified and high-performing employees. Through ongoing recruitment strategies
and initiatives such as talent pools, social media-based recruitment, and
community partnerships, the Public Service Commission supported government
ministries to recruit the talent that they need.
A big success in this area
was the support the PSC provided to the creation and implementation of the
Saskatchewan marshals service. The PSC offered key human resource support
through organizational design, position classification, and recruitment efforts
to get the service set up and established.
Another recruitment success
story was a pilot project in partnership with the Ministry of Corrections,
Policing and Public Safety. The pilot saw the PSC offer targeted staffing and
recruitment support to the ministry. The PSC helped to build new talent pipelines
and implement effective hiring programs in collaboration with CPPS
[Corrections, Policing and Public Safety] management.
They’ve also been using
social media and career fairs to connect with potential talent and enhance the
appeal of public service careers. This includes an enhanced focus on our online
presence on LinkedIn to tap into diverse talent pools and highlight the
rewarding career opportunities within the government. This platform allows us
to showcase the benefits and impacts in public service roles to attract skilled
professionals who are passionate about making a difference.
A competitive pay and
benefits package aids in recruitment and retention for all areas of government.
The summer saw the successful negotiation and implementation of collective
bargaining agreements with the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees’
Union, SGEU; and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE Local 600. This
included implementing a classification plan renewal for SGEU. I appreciate the
commitment and co-operation of both the PSC employees and the unions in working
at the bargaining table to reach a new collective agreement that is good for
both public service employees and the people of Saskatchewan.
With an aging payroll system,
much manual work was required to successfully implement the agreements. I’d
like to acknowledge the work of PSC employees to make the necessary changes and
salary updates. I know they’re looking forward to implementing the modernized
payroll system that will be able to process these kinds of updates more
efficiently and effectively.
The Government of
Saskatchewan is committed to ensuring workplace health, safety, and wellness
for all its employees. Ministries, management, supervisors, and employees are
actively engaged in developing and implementing approaches to health, safety,
and wellness through effective strategies, programming, and performance.
The PSC is responsible for
the government-wide employee and family assistance program that provides
counselling, resources, and 24‑7 service availability. They secured
continued EFAP [employee family assistance program] services with Kii Health
following a comprehensive procurement selection process this year. This
agreement includes added benefits like regular mental health learning sessions
and other proactive well-being tools related to personal finances,
relationships, and physical health.
New this year employees can
access support from an Elder or Knowledge Keeper within their community in
place of standard EFAP short-term goal-focused counselling. EFAP also provides
support and resources for managers to help them create psychologically safe
workplaces. The mental and physical health of employees continues to be a high
priority for government.
The focus of the PSC for 2025‑26
is to continue to progress on our plan. The budget will allow us to focus on
our priorities, will set the organization up for the successful transition to
the new integrated human resource system, GEM, and position the organization to
effectively support their client ministries.
In order to achieve its
goals, the Government of Saskatchewan needs the strategic advice, support, and
guidance of the PSC. Their work is critical to ensure we have the right people
with the right skills in the public service. The PSC’s work helps ministries so
they can deliver for the people of Saskatchewan. I’m proud of the PCS’s
accomplishments and confident in the work that’s planned for the coming year.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we
look forward to responding to questions.
Chair
Steele: — Before we move into
questions, could we get you to remove the drink bottle and the can? Just little
housekeeping things. And we have glasses here as well. There’s water provided.
MLA [Member of the
Legislative Assembly] Teed, go ahead and go into questions now.
[17:15]
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I just want to first by saying welcome to the
officials to the legislature on this pretty beautiful afternoon in Regina. I
was just out there and wish we could all be out there but . . .
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I move that we move the meeting outside.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Outside on the lawn, absolutely. I would support that. Absolutely. Look forward
to our discussion and, Minister, I want to thank you for your opening remarks.
Just very informative to hear what the PSC is working on and goals and
strategies. Preface, I’m new to the critic portfolio. My colleague predecessor
Jennifer Bowes was our PSC critic prior to the election. And so excited to dive
in.
I just want to start, I
think, with asking some financial questions. I want to start by asking about
the increases to the various line items. So firstly we’re seeing a 22 per cent
increase in the budget to the central management services. Not a lot of explanation
in the business plan or the budget, so I was wondering if you can give me a
little explanation of why we’re seeing such a large increase to central
services at this time.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
So what we’ll maybe do is I’ll provide a bit of a high-level response, then
I’ll ask Greg and the team here to provide some more detailed comments. Because
you’re quite right. And you rightfully point out, there is a significant
increase in a number of line items in the PSC budget this year.
And I think you point to
initially, rightfully, the central management and services subvote where there
is an increase of 1.149 million, which is a 22 per cent increase. And
that’s largely due to a $1.073 million increase in accommodations for the
additional space required. And that is because we are bringing 20 new permanent
and 62 term positions for the new GEM program. That really is the big part of
it.
There is $108,000 in that
increase as well to salary for central management and services as a result of
the collective bargaining agreement increases and the out-of-scope economic
adjustments. There is another position funded for a term project manager for
the GEM implementation process. And there is a net decrease in that as well,
and that’s of $180,000. And that was an internal rebasing to better align the
budget with actual expenditures. But I will turn it to Greg, and maybe he can
get more granular on some of those items.
Greg Tuer:
— Thanks, Minister. Greg Tuer, Chair of the Public Service Commission. So
you’re right, there is a significant increase in our budget this year. And
really there’s three main drivers behind the increase you see in our budget.
The minister referred to the first, and that’s salary increases across the
board. And those are due to negotiated changes to our collective bargaining
agreements and then their application to out-of-scope staff as well. So over
across the entire PSC, that’s $2.96 million are tied to that.
Minister also referred to
resources required for EBMP [enterprise business modernization project] and GEM
system implementation. And so there are 20 permanent FTEs [full-time
equivalent] for GEM system sustainment and 62 temporary FTEs for the implementation
of GEM system. So we have the workforce there to respond to inquiries and sort
of, you know, people will be working through a new system and have lots of
questions. Those temporary FTEs will be primarily at the HR service centre
where we would expect the largest volume of work, and also this includes
project managers as the minister said.
The other, the third piece,
is just the movement of funds between subvotes. We’ve gone through a
reorganization process in preparation for this, and so we’ve moved staff across
divisions as we’re kind of transitioning to a new future state that is aligned
with requirements for the new system.
So specifically for central
management and services, that subvote includes operating expenses for the
Chair’s office, our commissioners’ honorariums and travel expenses, our
communications branch, our financial and admin services branch, and then our
portion of Minister’s office expenses. You’ll also see in this subvote where we
have our funding for government’s long-service recognition program, and that’s
for our 25‑ and 35‑year employees. We have an event every year and
employees can come and get recognized.
As well as accommodation
services for the PSC. And so we are located in seven office locations in Regina
— that’s three leased buildings and four government-owned buildings — and one
office in Saskatoon, which is a government-owned building. And so included in
this subvote there’s office rent, record storage, postal services, things like
that. It also includes a portion of our information technology expenses. So
that’s where we’re billed through SaskBuilds and Procurement; so things like
desktops, laptop, all of our computer needs.
So yes, overall the central
management services subvote increased by $1.149 million, and that’s due
to, as the Minister said, an increase of $1 million in accommodations. And
that’s directly linked to the additional staff that we’ll see coming on for
this year, the project manager resource to help us manage the implementation of
the system as well as helping us provide response to any critical issues that
may pop up. And then finally the increase in negotiated changes.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Thank you so much for the detailed information there. I’m just reviewing here
through my notes. I might come back to something. But I might move on and just
we’ll continue through these subvotes.
Another 44 per cent increase
under the subvote called employee relations and strategic human resources.
Again could I ask about those increases: why they’re increasing so much and
what’s the money being used for?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I’ll maybe kind of provide a high-level response, and then Greg can provide a
more granular response as well. But it’s a very good question. And it’s a very
valid observation as well.
So there has been an increase
on the employee relations and strategic human resource services subvote of just
over $4 million — $4.014 million increase, which is a 44.5 per cent
increase. And this really includes an increase of $2.393 million in salary
funding, and that aligns with the future-state structure of the PSC.
And Greg can speak a bit more
to that, but that includes the collective bargaining agreement increase and the
out-of-scope economic adjustments. It includes $1.259 million for 15 new
permanent positions in the talent branch. And really these positions are
required to complete the new work that GEM requires, as well as the work that’s
being transferred from the ministries as a result of the new systems
requirements. Also an increase of $210,000 related to changes in the
administration of the criminal record check program. And an increase of
$152,000 in operational funding that is a result of the internal rebasing based
on the actual expenditure.
So Greg, over to you.
Greg Tuer:
— So I won’t restate the numbers. I think what I’ll do is just . . .
When we implement the new system in our talent branch, we’ll be increasing the
supports we provide to hiring managers in the staffing process. And so there
are requirements in the system that people at PSC will need to input
information, make sure information is flowing through the system, to make sure
that we can onboard and get people set up in the organization.
Where you’re seeing a
decrease in some votes and an increase here really is primarily a number of
staff in PSC moving to our talent branch in order to support that staffing
function. So we have staff from our HR business partner teams who are moving.
We have people from our HR service centre who are moving there. And all of that
is really to support government’s priority around making sure that we’re able
to hire people in order to deliver on our priorities.
The systems we have today, we
have a distributed staffing model and each and every hiring manager has their
own support person helping them to use our Taleo system. And so what we’re
doing when we go to the new system, we’re consolidating all of that centrally,
and then PSC will provide that support, as well as recruitment supports and
advice to managers.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Are you seeing like a projection that there will be, I guess, efficiencies
found with the transition to a new system, some of the changes that you’re
making, moving people, providing supports? You know, it looks like we’re seeing
kind of a larger investment up front. Will those efficiencies equal, you know,
savings down the road? I guess I don’t know if that’s the best way to say it.
But could you comment maybe on some of the efficiencies you expect to see?
Greg
Tuer: —
Yeah, so I think you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head. Consolidating all of
these resources in one place I really think provides us with the opportunity to
see sort of efficiencies of scale. With a distributed model like we have today,
we have, I don’t know, approximately 3,000 hiring
managers across government. And so the opportunity to find efficiencies, have
better process, you know, be more efficient with it is more challenging.
We’re moving to a
consolidation. We’ll have all of those resources in one branch, and you know,
opportunity as we get to know the system. Because yeah, I think we’ll see a bit
of an uptick in terms of the effort required as we get to know the system, as our
clients get to know the system. But absolutely the long-term thinking is over
time we’ll find better ways to be more efficient and frankly more effective.
And so those 15 resources
that you see in our budget really is our estimation of the work that’s
currently distributed across the government. And so we’ve realigned that work.
We’ve brought it centrally into our talent branch, thinking that, yeah, we can
probably be a lot more efficient than the distributed 3,000 hiring managers.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Great. So what we likely will see is hiring managers moving from other
ministries consolidating within the PSC as opposed to sitting in Health or
sitting in Education, would you say? Is that fair to say?
Greg
Tuer: —
No. What will happen is — sorry, I probably wasn’t clear — so we will have
talent acquisition consultants that will work directly with managers who are
out there running their programs. At the end of the day, the managers will
still make the hiring decision, but they will have a human resource person
right there with them and someone who has expertise in recruitment and be able
to help them, you know, work through interview guides, through how we’re going
to assess people, what the best strategy is in order to find the people that
we’re looking for for a particular person. And of course we’ll have those same
people working with the system day in, day out, and that’s where we expect to
see efficiencies in the longer term.
Nathaniel Teed: —
And when you said “consolidating,” now would those be those 20 new positions in
central management and services, or are we going to see kind of a consolidation of staff under
these different lines?
Greg
Tuer: —
Those 15 employees will ultimately be in our talent branch, which is in the
employee relations and strategic HR services. Where you’re seeing money in
central management and services is the accommodation piece. So the IT
[information technology] supports, the space, the offices — all that sort of
piece.
Nathaniel Teed: — Thank you so much. I’ll move
on to the increase in the human resources service centre. Again we’re seeing an
85 per cent increase in the ’25‑26 budget. I’m looking for that
high-level and granular details on what this money is being used for.
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Yeah, no, I appreciate the
question and it’s a good one as well. There is a significant increase in the HR
service centre budget, $9.175 million increase, which is 85.5 per cent, so
very, very significant. And this includes a number of things which we’ll get
into, but I’ll go through them.
Increase
of $699,000 in salary funding to align with the future-state structure of the
PSC, and this includes the collective bargaining agreement increase and the
out-of-scope economic adjustments which were the case in the other items as
well.
Includes
$3.633 million in salary funding for the 61 term positions which we had
earlier referenced, and 329,000 for the five permanent positions in the human
resource service centre in order to implement and sustain the new enterprise
management system; five permanent configuration analysts that are required to
support the new human resource modules in the new system due to their size and
complexity; and the 61 temporary resources which are required to ensure
effective and timely payroll processing through the implementation period.
Also
includes $4.471 million for GEM system implementation, comprised of
2.6 million for PSC’s contribution to the sustainment contract, 1.4 million
for the licensing costs related to the HCM [human capital management] module,
and $150,000 for GEM training. Greg can maybe speak to some of the other
details.
Greg
Tuer: —
Absolutely. So the human resource service centre in a typical year would be
somewhere just over 100 FTEs, about 118. With the additional term resources
we’ll be up around 176 FTEs for the upcoming year.
[17:30]
And so the HR service centre
subvote, that’s the salaries and operating expenses for the HR service centre.
And that’s where we provide human resource administration, payroll, and benefit
services to government employees and some external agencies.
They
are also the people who maintain a number of our existing HR information
systems, and so we have the associated costs with those. So that would be our
current MIDAS [multi-informational database application system] HR payroll
system, our benefits system, our learning system, PSC Client, that Taleo
staffing recruitment system I referred to earlier, our Be At Work
accommodations program, our classification application that we use internally,
and our incident reporting and investigation safety tool.
So
as you mentioned, the increase in funding is again just under 700,000 —
699,000. Includes those collective bargaining agreements, so that adjustment
and the out-of-scope economic adjustments for the out-of-scope staff, as well
as the money and funding for the 61 term positions. And those people will be
brought in, just again, to make sure that we are ready for implementation sort
of shortly in advance. And then we do expect to see a significant increase in
calls from clients as they adjust to the new system.
They
will get more information on their pay stubs than we ever have, and so we just
expect a lot more calls. And we’ve been, through the project, talking to folks
in other projects like AIMS [administrative information management system], and
they’ve informed us that, you know, part of their initial implementation was,
boy, we should resource up so we’re prepared for that onslaught.
So
we’re going to be doing that. We have five permanent configuration analysts,
and that’s in addition to the folks that we have today that are supporting
those other systems. And so, once the system is implemented, then we’ll be
responsible for the maintenance and ongoing upkeep for it. And also in addition
to that, there’s $2.7 million for our contribution to the overall
sustainment contract, $1.4 million for licensing costs related to the HR
module, $290,000 just for additional IT costs, and $150,000 earmarked for
training.
Nathaniel Teed: — Thank you so much. What is
the term for those 60 positions that will be brought in to help implement this
process? Do you have a timeline? Or do you see when those folks will be
. . .
Greg
Tuer: — So
that funding is for this fiscal year. Yeah, so again we expect in the longer
term we will see efficiencies through the system. This is ramping up to prepare
for turning on the system and that initial — I keep using the term onslaught
but — increase in service requests from clients. And then we’ll keep an eye on
that and if we need more, then I guess we’ll go back to the treasury board
process.
Nathaniel Teed: —
Were there any
lessons that we’ve learned from AIMS that might have, will continue to make
this process a little smoother or make sure that we’re not seeing cost
overruns? Are you able to speak to those at all?
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Yeah, you know, I appreciate
the question. I think probably SaskBuilds would be better positioned to comment
on that. I think Greg spoke well though to, I think, some best practices around
being prepared for that increase in support requests that are going to be
coming forward, and that really is reflected in the 61 positions which we had
just been discussing. So we’re going to make sure that we are, you know, as
well positioned as we can be to respond to a lot of the requests that come
forward through the process.
I
think as MLAs we’re familiar with a small part of it through the PSC Client
process, but really across government there are a whole lot of applications. So
you know, hopefully not too many requests coming from members in the Chamber.
There may be. You never know. I know I’ve had to have help on occasion with a
couple of elements.
So
you know, increased functionality. We are expecting there are going to be
additional requests. So that would be, I think, a best practice that really
we’ve taken to heart, and that’s why we’ve staffed up as far as the temporary
resources.
Nathaniel Teed: — Thank you so much. Could you
provide me with the term of the collective bargaining agreement that was signed
with CUPE and SGEU?
Pat Bokitch: — Thank you for the question.
I’m Pat Bokitch, assistant Chair. The current collective bargaining agreement
that was reached recently, negotiated and implemented, expires on September
30th, 2025, so coming up this fall. That was a three-year agreement going back
to 2022.
Nathaniel Teed: — And have negotiations
started to renew that collective agreement?
Pat Bokitch: — Thank you
for your question. We’re really in the preliminary stages, not yet actively
bargaining, just strategizing our approach as the employer.
Nathaniel Teed: —
Certainly have some time then. Could you provide me with the percentage
increases over the term of that three-year collective agreement?
Pat Bokitch: — Yeah, for
sure. So the general wage increases for the most recent collective bargaining
agreement were 3 per cent for 2022, 2 per cent for 2023, and 2 per cent for
2024. That included a wage
increase and a small percentage applicable to pensions.
Nathaniel Teed: — And would it have been any
different for out-of-scope employees?
Pat
Bokitch: —
The general wage increases were applied to out-of-scope employees in the same
way.
Nathaniel Teed: — Thank you so much. I guess
relating to . . . Thank you so much for breaking down all those
various increases. I think we see very logical, you know, money needing to be
applied to facilitate those collective agreements.
I
guess perhaps maybe my question is . . . And maybe it is a comment on
the timeliness of making these larger investments on switching our technology.
You know, we see a lot of unprecedented events happening, money needed for
health care, money needed for education, all those things. Could you maybe give
us a little explanation as to why you felt like now was the time to make those
investments in new technology?
Greg
Tuer: —
Thanks for the question. Can’t speak to the investments in health care or
education, but for the PSC our existing HR information system, MIDAS, was
implemented almost 20 years ago. I would say that the challenge is to support
it at this point. It’s old technology. We’ve fallen behind with the times. I
think we’re seeing it show its wear and tear, so we really were at the point
where it’d be costing us more just to try and maintain what we have than to
invest in new technology at this point.
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Yeah, I’d maybe offer just
some high-level thoughts as well. I mean, you know, as Greg well points out,
MIDAS has been the system we’ve had in place now for over 20 years. And I kind
of relate back to . . . You know, my dad was — I think I’ve mentioned
this before — my father was a senior public servant, and he’s like, you’re
still using MIDAS? Because 20 years ago, even at that point, there was some
challenges, I would say. Not being personally conversant with all of them, I
know that there had been.
So
you know, technology has moved along from where it had been, and really I think
that this would be viewed . . . I think it would be fair to say that
we view this as an investment that will be, you know, showing returns across
the entirety of the public service, as far as efficiency, as far as
flexibility, as far as staffing requirements.
There
is a very, very significant component of manual attention needed to a lot of
the processes that exist right now. You know, IT systems are known to often be
quite expensive as far as the front-end investment, but I think well
implemented over time, you do end up seeing a return on that investment.
So
I think, you know, we really look at it in that context of, we had a system
that needed to be replaced, or a number of different systems that needed to
replaced, and by doing that — and doing that in a way that will reduce the need
for a lot of the manual and detailed and other processes that we’ve used to
kind of paper over some of the challenges that exist in the other IT systems —
that at the end of the day we’re going to realize more benefit from doing this
than the cost.
Greg Tuer: — May I add
one . . .
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Absolutely. Go ahead, Greg.
Greg Tuer: — I’m sorry. I missed a point
there, I think. Also with the age of our system, there could come with that
certain IT security concerns, and so it costs a lot to maintain. It’s important
that we make sure that the system is secure. And just with a system like ours
of that vintage, it just comes with more challenges on that front. So we’re
moving to a modern, new system. It will be updated more regularly, and
hopefully with that comes a higher degree of security for our information.
Nathaniel Teed: — Really appreciate that. No,
absolutely. All very important factors, efficiency and security. It might be a
little granular, but would you have an answer to how many systems that GEM will
be replacing? Is it quite large? Yeah.
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Well I can . . .
Kind of when you get into the really granular components of GEM, probably
SaskBuilds. But what I can tell you, this is going to replace 60 systems across
government, so it’s a large number.
Nathaniel
Teed: — Well that’s appreciated. I think we
had kind of talked a little bit about 1.4 million for licensing costs. Do
you have a figure for the ongoing operating costs that we’ll be seeing once
this is fully implemented?
Pat Bokitch:
— Thank you for the question. We’re not able to answer that. I think it’s
probably best positioned with SaskBuilds as the project lead.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Okay, thank you so much. I will make a note of that.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So will I.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
It’s a good thing I’ve got my colleague, the critic for SaskBuilds, right here
with us. I’m just going to take a peek at my questions here. We’ve been kind of
talking perhaps maybe . . . What state of implementation are we at
with GEM? And what do you see the timeline being for full actualization?
Greg Tuer:
— So we’re at the point right now, the project is doing what is called
integrated testing cycle. So that’s where they’re testing across the HR system,
the financial system, and the procurement system. And so the plan as it stands
right now is the financial and procurement system components are targeted to
launch in fall of 2025. And then human resource components will launch, you
know, anywhere from four to six months after that. So we’re continuing to test,
make sure we’ve removed all of the bugs before we go live, again learning from
where others have gone before us here.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
For sure. No, I certainly appreciate that, and I’m sure all the employees that
we have in the Government of Saskatchewan appreciate that. I know we heard a
lot of horror stories from the federal government level with Phoenix pay
system, and we probably do not want to see that happen.
[17:45]
I’m just going to jump back
to my question about operating costs. One question that we had was, why
. . . Is SaskBuilds paying for the operating costs, the yearly
operating costs, or why would that loop back to SaskBuilds?
Greg Tuer:
— Maybe it would be best if I just clarify what is in our budget for the year
ahead. I think, you know, in terms of operating cost, I think we’ll expect the
same and then, you know, adjustments for inflation as we go ahead.
So what we have in the PSC
budget for this upcoming year is approximately $4.5 million. So that’s
$150,000 for Oracle University subscription. And so this is the training that
our configuration analysts will require. So they will get that training directly
from Oracle. $1.4 million for software licensing, which might be the
operating cost that you were speaking to, and that’s so that all of Government
of Saskatchewan can use the HR components of the system. $2.7 million for
the HR portion of the Deloitte sustainment contract, so that’s the contract
going forward. And then $260,000 for ITD [information technology division]
services through this, so that would be the SaskBuilds portion.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Sorry. Could you explain ITD services?
Greg Tuer:
— I’m sorry. So SaskBuilds and Procurement, their division that’s responsible
for IT services to government is called information technology division, ITD.
Sorry for the acronym.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
No, appreciate. I guess that probably kind of answers my question. So like
which ministry in government was responsible for overseeing the implementation
of GEM for PCS? And then will that ministry remain responsible for that IT
system? Would that be fair to say that SaskBuilds . . .
Greg Tuer:
— I would say PSC will be responsible for the HR component of it. ITO
[information technology office] or ITD, which would be SaskBuilds and
Procurement, kind of has the overall IT oversight for government. Finance will
be responsible for the financial part of the system as well.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Thank you so much. Do you happen to have a total capital cost of the GEM system
for the government from when implementation started until now?
Greg Tuer:
— That would be SaskBuilds.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Just a clarification. Great. I guess the question I would need there: are they
booking the expense through SaskBuilds or through PSC?
Greg Tuer:
— Right now while the project is in development, that’s all through SaskBuilds.
Once we move to implementation, then it will be distributed to the different
partner ministries.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Okay. Could I just get a little clarification? GEM versus the EBMP’s IT system,
just for maybe those watching at home.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
That three people.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Three people and I’ll add myself as well.
Greg Tuer:
— Well I think we have 20 in the board room right now screaming the answer to
me. But so EBMP is the project. And I’ll talk really slowly because I’m trying
to remember what the “P” is. Enterprise business . . .
Pat Bokitch:
— Enterprise business management project. “P” for project.
Greg Tuer:
— We’ll say project. And so once we move to implementing the system, it will be
called GEM. The project itself actually held a little contest with the staff
who are currently developing the system to come up with the name of it going
forward. And so GEM will be short for government enterprise management. And you
know how we love our three-letter acronyms. So it will be GEM going forward.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
If it doesn’t have an acronym, does it exist within a government? Or any kind
of system? No, I really appreciate that help. And I know that I’m sure that
I’ll be conferring some of these questions where we can go to SaskBuilds to get
better answers for.
What is the location of the
data centre running the software for GEM?
Greg Tuer:
— I’m sorry, you’ll have to ask SaskBuilds on that. Yeah.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I think then at this point I’m going to move on to some
FTE questions. I’m just going to review here to see if there was any
. . . I’ve been taking some frantic notes as we’ve been chatting and
just going to see if there was anything else that jumped out at me. But I
appreciate the clarification as to where SaskBuilds and PSC kind of engage on
this.
What
I’m going to do is I’ll jump over to some FTE questions. I guess my first
question is, what is the number of government FTEs that PCS is responsible as
of April 1st, ’25‑26? And could you provide me a breakdown by ministry,
agency, or commission?
Greg Tuer:
— Sorry, we don’t have the updated numbers for the end of this last fiscal
year, start of this. We could provide you for the end of the ’23‑24
fiscal year.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
That would be fantastic.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Thanks. Greg and the officials can maybe speak to it in a bit more depth about
the allocation within the PSC. But at the end of ’23‑24 there were 289
FTEs allocated to the Public Service Commission, which was a slight increase
from the ’22‑23 year in which there were 283. So across government that
year ’23‑24 there were 11,673 FTEs.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
And how would those break down in the PSC, like agency or commission?
Greg Tuer:
— So again, so these would be to the end of the ’23‑24 fiscal year. We’re
at that unique period in time right now in early April where all of the
year-end processing continues, so we don’t actually have a finalized number for
the ministries until May. What I can tell you is head count, which is not FTE,
but sort of the number of individual employees in government at the end of
December 2024 was 11,625. But I can go through those ’23‑24 numbers if
you’d like.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
I’d appreciate that.
Greg Tuer:
— So this is for executive government. This is the ministries that we provide
service to.
So Advanced Education was 113
FTEs; Ministry of Agriculture, 332; Corrections, Policing and Public Safety,
2,777; Education, 269; Energy and Resources, 294; Environment, 358; Executive
Council, 75; Finance, 352; Firearms Secretariat, 18; Government Relations, 164;
Health, 381; Highways, 1,268.
Immigration and Career
Training, 249; integrated justice services, 182; Justice and Attorney General,
958; Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, 160; Parks, Culture and Sport, 443;
Public Service Commission, 289; SaskBuilds and Procurement, 991; Social Services,
1,879; and Trade and Export Development is 122. So that comes to 11,673.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah, and I might add to that as well. So you know, this is part of the
increase that we’re seeing in the Public Service Commission into this fiscal
year though. So there were the 305 that were allocated FTEs, less as we kind of
go through the year. And you know, there’s some that are not filled for
whatever reason over parts of that year, so you end up with the year-end
basically reconciliation of the actual utilization of the FTEs allocated. So
you end up with a bit of variance because of these different ways of
calculating or talking about the FTE count.
There are additional FTEs
allocated to the Public Service Commission this year, and that’s precisely what
you were rightfully asking about earlier with regard to staffing for primarily
the GEM project. So the 61 part-timer or non-permanent FTEs that are going to
be allocated to PSC this year, and then the additional 20 on top of that. So
there’s an increase of 82 FTEs allocated in this budget year over last budget
year.
Nathaniel Teed: —
Perfect. How many staff were terminated with cause by PSC and its organizations
in ’24‑25 and therefore included in the administration costs of PSC
budget forecast, which is part of the ’25 estimates document?
[18:00]
Greg Tuer:
— Just if I can clarify, you said terminations with cause?
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Yes.
Greg Tuer:
— So this would be across all of the Government of Saskatchewan. Just to
clarify, I think you used “within PSC,” but so this is across PSC. And so our
HR business partners and our employee and labour relations branch would support
managers as they work through a termination process, as well as support from
civil law in the Ministry of Justice. And so the numbers we have are just to
December of ’24‑25. And so those, there were 10 terminations for cause
across the Government of Saskatchewan.
And maybe just one more
. . . maybe come back to my first point of clarification there. Those
terminations would be done by the ministries, so that would be distributed
across all of the Government of Saskatchewan.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Right. And so then therefore, like, the costs would also be distributed amongst
all those . . . [inaudible interjection] . . . Okay, sounds
good. Do you have a figure on how many staff were terminated without cause by
PSC or the ministries across the board?
Greg Tuer:
— Okay, so for out-of-scope terminations without cause, that would include
situations where there was a job abolishment, a dismissal, and/or a demotion.
So from April 1st of 2024 to December 31st, 2024, there were 24 terminations
without cause, yeah, across government.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Are you able to break down the job abolition, dismissal, or demotion numbers?
Greg Tuer:
— No, sorry. We’ve just . . . The information we have here today just
has all of the “without cause” lumped together.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Appreciate that. Again would those costs
be shared across the ministries? Or is there a portion of your budget estimates
that would cover for that?
Greg
Tuer: —
The cost for a settlement on a dismissal without cause would be borne by the
ministry that made that determination. So again we would support those managers
in doing the termination, but the decision to terminate would be at the
ministry as well as the cost for whatever the agreement was at the end.
And those agreements or
severance payments, they’re guided by common-law principles and precedents
and/or, you know, the appropriate Act if there’s specific language of a
specific Act.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
So going back to the “with cause” or
“without cause,” we have 10 overall global. Do you have any numbers
specifically for PSC?
Greg
Tuer: —
Well for PSC for terminations?
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Yeah. With and without cause. Yeah.
Greg
Tuer: —
So then the number for the Public Service Commission for terminations overall
last year was three.
Nathaniel Teed: — Thank you so much. How many union
staff were laid off under the provisions of the union agreements by PSC and
organizations that it supported and therefore included in the PSC budget? And
what was the total cost of those payments?
Greg Tuer:
— Thanks for the question. We actually don’t have a number for that here. What
I would say though, for in-scope employees who are laid off, they would have
access to the bumping provisions in the collective agreement. And so there’s a
number of options for an individual. They can choose to bump based on
classification level; they can choose to bump based on location. So if you are
an employee in a centre other than Regina or Saskatoon it might be more of a
priority for you to stay close to where you are. And so there is an entire
bumping process for those situations.
We’re not aware of any
abolishments or layoffs, but that’s something that we can go back and check.
The only number we have in front of us is the dismissals with cause.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
That’s very appreciated. Is it something that perhaps that you might be able to
provide me?
Greg Tuer:
— We can go back and see if we have a number.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
I guess I wondered, do you want to recess until the minister is back?
. . . [inaudible interjection] . . . I don’t mind if you
want to . . . [inaudible] . . . Or I can keep asking
questions but I, if he wants . . . I’m good. I’m happy either way.
Chair
Steele: — Do you feel confident
that you can answer if we continue on?
Greg Tuer:
— Yeah. No we’ll be . . . [inaudible].
Chair
Steele: — Otherwise their time
allotted won’t get filled, right.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Oh, totally not a worry.
Chair
Steele: — You’re fine with that?
A Member:
— Yes.
Chair
Steele: — Okay.
Nathaniel Teed: — I guess
maybe I’ll ask a few questions around . . . While we’re kind of
talking about the union staff or, you know, layoffs or terminations, I wonder
if you have any other, any use of private contractors within the PSC? Are you
seeing any work that was formerly done internally that has been outsourced to
private contractors in the last year? Anything being considered for contracting
out in the coming year?
Greg
Tuer: —
Thanks for the question. So again, off the top of our head, we’re not aware of
any privatization. If an organization was to consider changing service provider
like that, they would be required to work through the Public Service
Commission. We would then have conversations with the SGEU. There’s provisions
in our collective agreement that speak to that. And sorry, we’re not aware of
any examples in the last year.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Appreciate that. As far as vendor-sponsored travel, we had discussed some of
the use of the Oracle University training. Is there any vendor-sponsored travel
as part of that? Have any of the ministry employees taken any trips paid by
vendors outside the contractual agreement? Off-site training?
Greg
Tuer: —
Thanks for the question. No, we’re not aware of any vendor-sponsored travel
occurring inside the Public Service Commission in the last year. The specific
example you used of Oracle University, that will be completely virtual for our
staff. So that will be done online from here.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Thank you so much. Related to, or maybe just to continue with that, a little
bit of questioning. Is there any money being spent on advertising by the
ministry?
Greg Tuer: — Again thanks for the question. The
Public Service Commission, the only advertising we would do would be posting
job ads. We don’t have campaigns, billboards, things like that. We are a
central agency back office. There’s not a lot to promote there.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
I appreciate that. Is there any cost related to the
job postings with SaskJobs? Or whereabouts are you utilizing job postings?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I could maybe speak to the SaskJobs-specific question. I’ll maybe turn it
to Greg and the team for where we post jobs additional to that. But SaskJobs is
a program run through the Ministry of Immigration and Career Training. You
know, not an insignificant amount of work has gone into keeping SaskJobs up to
date.
And there had been a
discussion a number of years ago where the Government of Canada basically
wanted to take over the job posting process from provinces, many of which had
SaskJobs-equivalent sort of job posting sites. In order to do that though,
which the federal government had given a commitment to pay to do, but as
probably not a surprise to most folks in the Chamber, it was overly
complicated, highly bureaucratic, and very ineffective.
So we, on the basis of that,
basically told the federal government, you know, thanks but no thanks; we’re
going to regenerate the SaskJobs platform. Which we did, working directly with
employers to really make it the central hub that it was and is and it continues
to be.
They do a good job at ICT
[Immigration and Career Training] of administering that system. But you know,
we take advantage of that through job postings through the Public Service
Commission along with a number of employers across the province as well.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Is there any cost associated with that?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I don’t believe that there is a cost associated with promoting jobs on SaskJobs
for government, although Minister Reiter or our senior team at ICT could
probably speak to that more eloquently.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Are you using any other platforms to post jobs?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
We are. And that’s what I’ll turn it to Greg to discuss.
Greg Tuer:
— Yes. So I believe I heard the minister say, of course, we’re using our own
Government of Saskatchewan career centre. But in addition to that we utilize
LinkedIn, so the recruitment website. And so we have what’s deemed as three
recruiter licences, six job slots, and access to what is described as a career
life page. And so our contract for the next 13 months with LinkedIn comes to
$79,131.
[18:15]
And so what we receive for
that again is . . . The recruiter licence really allows us to link
our own HR information system to LinkedIn so we have a seamless posting. So if
you or I went in to apply for a job, we could go in through LinkedIn. It goes
directly to our career centre. And so someone doesn’t have to see the ad in
SpotOne and then search out the career centre, so a more efficient way. And
hopefully that helps us be more effective.
Through that we can also send
messages to anyone who has a profile on the platform, and so that is through
their InMail system. And it also provides us with advanced search filters and
the ability to save those searches. So if there was a unique occupation inside
government and we were looking for a butterfly specialist for the Ministry of
Agriculture, we could go through and do a really advanced search to see what
that labour market looks like inside LinkedIn.
The Job Slots again. So
that’s sort of the ability to promote jobs, have that engagement with
candidates, and also manage the applications through that. So an example would
be Ministry of Finance has a financial analyst. There’s a paid job ad on
LinkedIn, and that’s front and centre for individuals who match. It would be
specific criteria that we’ve put in for whether it’s a certain financial
designation or something, you know, that’s unique to that role. And then it’s
in our job posting. We’re able to use the system to search out and find people
who have that on their profile, and so that comes up in front of them. So it
helps us push ads out to the people out there that we might want to recruit.
And then finally the Career,
Life page provides candidates with the opportunity to see what it looks like to
work for the Government of Saskatchewan. So from time to time when you’re on
LinkedIn you might see specific employees from the Government of Saskatchewan,
where we’ve highlighted front-line employees, and they’re able to say a little
bit about what it is they do and what their experience is.
And we’ve really found that
it’s a really powerful tool. It increases awareness of what the jobs are across
the Government of Saskatchewan. And we’re seeing it driving interest to roles
where people might, oh, didn’t know they had that work in government, or hadn’t
thought about the Government of Saskatchewan. And it puts a little bit more of
a personal touch on it than kind of, you know, a standard corporate ad.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Is LinkedIn . . . Like do you use Indeed or any other platforms for
job postings?
Greg
Tuer: —
I’ve been informed the short answer is no.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
No. Appreciate that. I guess I’ll ask and then maybe jump a little bit here to
cost-saving measures. And I wonder if you could describe any, you know,
cost-saving measures that PSC is looking at.
I understand, you know, that
we’re making an investment. We’re doing this for the future, for efficiencies.
I’m wondering if there is anything in the plan though to make sure that, you
know, we’re saving money where we can — hiring freezes, vacancy management,
out-of-province travel limitations, those things.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I’ll let the team maybe just speak to some of the details. But we went through
a couple of the examples in the very early questions that the member put
forward around decreases that really were rebasing elements of the individual
subvotes, which really were around alignment with the actual expenditures that
we historically had seen, right.
So that was the case in central
management and services. That was the case in the budget on employee relations
and strategic HR. Between those two it was, you know, 3 or $400,000 in
reductions there. So we’re always looking to make sure that we’re aligning
expenditures, even budgeted expenditures, with actuals to make sure that we’re
being efficient. But I will turn it to the experts for perhaps more detail.
Greg Tuer:
— Thanks for the question. I’ll come at this from a few angles. Think we have
one really strong example. A year ago now we went through a procurement process
around our employee and family assistance program. So we had been working with
one organization for a period of time.
That contract came up. And so
through the procurement process we feel we were able to expand the services
that were available. But so our previous provider, our annual cost per contract
year was just shy of $460,000 a year. The contract that we’ve been able to
establish with our current provider, Kii Health, is in the neighbourhood of
just over $377,000 a year and a little bit of change.
So right there was some
saving going through that procurement process. And that was a process that we
engaged in with a number of the Crowns. All of our contracts came up at the
same time. We went out to procurement together. Each of the organizations signed
our own contract. There was a little bit of sort of the power of coming
together and negotiating together to get that contract.
Other examples, the minister
mentioned earlier that we are distributed across a number of locations in both
Regina and one location in Saskatoon. And so part of our ongoing process is
just to take a look at what our lease costs are in the buildings that we’re in.
Are there opportunities to get more efficient there? This is not directly a
cost that the PSC has saved, but what I would say is to the broader government
organization. The Public Service Commission, we have two collective bargaining
agreements that we negotiate on behalf of the Government of Saskatchewan.
But in addition to those two
agreements, we bargain on behalf of a number of other government-like
organizations. So we bargain on behalf of the Sask Arts Board with the SGEU. We
bargain on behalf of Sask Crop Insurance with SGEU. We bargain on behalf of
Conexus Arts Centre with their two unions. We bargain on behalf of Legal Aid
and we bargain on behalf of Water Security Agency. And so those would be
examples of smaller organizations.
This is, you know, a very
specific skill set to be able to bargain a collective agreement. We have a
group of people who that’s the technical skills that they bring to the table.
So rather than broader government spending time, money, or having to contract
that out, or us stealing from each other at those times, the PSC provides that
service to those organizations.
In addition to those
measures, PSC ourselves, we take a close look at every vacancy that comes up,
make sure that the work that that vacancy does is aligned to our priorities,
our clients’ priorities. And at times we might sit on a vacancy for a period of
time just to make sure that, you know, we’re certain that that’s the work we
need to proceed with or perhaps move those resources inside PSC. And we talked
a little bit about rebasing to make sure that we have resources in the areas
where are our immediate priorities.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
No, thank you so much. I guess I’ll quickly ask about, you know, the reduction
in spending around the employee family health care plan. Are you seeing, you
know, similar services and savings?
Greg Tuer:
— You know, I think anecdotally we’re getting more for less money in this. The
minister mentioned I believe in his opening comments the current provider has
been very open to input from us. So things like when we first contracted with
the organization, one of the maybe gaps in service that was identified was the
ability for Indigenous employees to access Elder services. That wasn’t in our
initial contract. We reached out to the organization, and they were quite open
to expanding their service to provide that.
There is a very, very deep
catalogue of services that are provided by these folks. So there are things
like online therapist-assisted cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT; self-guided
CBT, a number of free webinars there; as I mentioned, the Elder and Knowledge
Keeper services; nurse care coordinator intake team.
So folks . . . I
think another advantage we’ve had with this change again, having saved money as
well, is one of the concerns we heard from employees who were accessing our
previous provider was . . . So it’s a short-term, goal-focused
counselling program. It’s not there for long-term treatment. But what people
would find is, when they’d come to the end of their engagement with the
counsellor, they weren’t able to continue with that same counsellor. So you and
I have met for three or four times. We’ve got a relationship. You understand
what’s going on for me. And then it was cut off.
Fortunately with the Kii
Health, people are able to continue on with that same provider. There isn’t the
same requirement from the organization that there be a cut-off there.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Fantastic. No, I really appreciate that breakdown of the offering. And yeah, I
feel like when you can go in and negotiate with a larger group, you’re able to
access those savings. So that’s fantastic.
Pat Bokitch:
— Thank you for the question. Feedback is really important to make sure that
the benefits are hitting the mark. In terms of the employee and family
assistance program and Kii Health, there is an ability to provide feedback on
those services for individuals generally and also specific to their interaction
for services.
We also work through our
business partner teams that work closely with ministries to understand the
feedback that they’re hearing in those ways. We have a Safety Champion Council.
They are a key input and conduit for information about product services that we
provide in the health and safety front. And prior to procurement or renewing of
any contracts, there is a feedback process undertaken to understand the value
that’s being provided and the perceived value of those contracts.
There’s also, if it’s
necessary, an issue resolution process through our employee wellness and
inclusion branch and Kii Health to understand the nature of the concern and
resolve a solution going forward.
[18:30]
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Thank you so much. That’s really appreciated. I’m going to jump into do you
have any information on when the agreements for the SK Arts, Crop Insurance,
Conexus, Legal Aid, Water Security, when those collective bargaining agreements
expire?
Pat Bokitch:
— Thank you for your question. The agreement between Sask Crop Insurance and
SGEU expires September 30th, 2025. The agreement between the Sask Arts Board
and SGEU expires September 30th, 2025 as well. The agreement with the Conexus
Arts Centre and the IATSE [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
Employees] expires June 30th, 2024, and the second agreement there between
Conexus Arts Centre and RWDSU [Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union]
expires January 26th, 2024. The agreement between the Legal Aid Commission and
CUPE expires September 30th, 2025. And the agreement between the Water Security
Agency and Unifor Local 820 expires December 31st, 2026.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Have any negotiations begun for the Conexus IATSE or RWDSU employees?
Pat Bokitch:
— Internal conversations and preparation, but bargaining has not commenced.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Have any meetings been booked for that?
Pat Bokitch:
— No, there isn’t bargaining booked for those.
Nathaniel Teed: — Cost of
living is a concern. Has the cost of living or wage increases been discussed at
all for those bargaining? Is that a priority?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
All right. Maybe I’ll have a couple of high-level comments, and then Greg can
speak to some of the process elements. But really, I mean there’s a public
sector bargaining committee that, you know, gives high-level direction with
regard to the bargaining process, really informed by the advice from the Public
Service Commission and from a number of other partners that are directly
engaged on a lot of these matters.
So you know, there are a
whole number of different elements that go into that process, some of which are
obviously confidential within government. But I would maybe ask Greg if he
wants to speak to the process behind how some of this functions.
Greg
Tuer: —
Yeah, and so I think I’ll kind of speak at a pretty high level right now. So I
would say we’re heading into a bargaining year this year. Our collective
agreement that we have with the SGEU and the collective agreement that we have
with CUPE will expire in the fall, September 30th. So from our end, our folks
in our employee and labour relations branch will be working through, you know,
getting some direction on what might be our priorities at the bargaining table.
I’ll speak to the SGEU
because I’m a little more familiar with them. They’ll have a bargaining council
meeting this spring — I think it’s typically June — and they will collect ideas
from their members about what they want to see.
Either one of the parties in
that SGEU agreement can serve notice that we want to start bargaining in
advance of the fall. So we’re expecting, you know, typically we would receive
that notice in the summer. Prior to September 30th we would start to get together
with the SGEU, talk broadly about proposals, what kind of the rules of
bargaining will be for us.
It isn’t until we’ve worked
through, I would say, more of the language-related proposals and we’re getting
down to the end of that process where we’re getting close to an agreement, at
that point, from our perspective, Public Service Commission, we would go to the
cabinet committee on public sector bargaining and say, we’re getting close. And
we would seek to get mandate from government at that point.
So that cabinet committee
provides oversight through the personnel policy secretariat in the Ministry of
Finance to — I’m sorry, I don’t have the briefing note in front of me — but
I’ll say approximately 30 different public sector collective bargaining agreements
that are out there. And so we would go to cabinet committee, we would get
provided with our mandate, and then we would go back to the table and negotiate
the monetary pieces of the collective agreements there.
So we at this point are in
very early days. More of the point where we’re deciding, you know, what are the
bargaining priorities, what are we looking for. The SGEU will be doing the
same. They’ll be determining who their bargaining committee will be. We’ll do
the same likely this summer, and then we’ll start to engage in meaningful
bargaining.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
I really appreciate that breakdown. It gives a better understanding of how the
process does work and the cabinet committee, for sure.
I guess I’m going to move
over to some questions around . . . You had mentioned in your
preamble the employees’ survey. Just wondering if you can provide me a little
bit more details around that, and if you might be able to provide me with a copy
of that survey. When was the last survey done, I guess would be the first one.
Greg
Tuer: —
The last employee engagement and culture survey was done in the fall of 2023.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
And how frequent would you be performing those surveys? When were the last
three or four, two or three surveys completed?
Pat Bokitch:
— Yeah, I’ll take that. Thank you for your question. Typically they occur on a
two-year rotation. We did have a bit of change of process through the pandemic.
So the previous engagement and culture surveys were conducted in 2021 and 2018,
prior to the 2023 survey that Greg mentioned.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
And are you able to provide me with a copy of the fall ’23 survey?
Pat Bokitch:
— Yes.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Are you able to provide an overview of the demographics that were garnered
through that survey?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
So that would be a part of the survey which we had committed to provide. We
don’t have that information right in front of us though.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Sounds good. I guess one of the last questions, well a couple . . .
I’m just going to review here. I’m going to take a hot second and take a
review. I guess when about should I expect that survey?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah, well I think the short answer is it won’t take us that long. But I can’t
say tomorrow or the next day. But we’ll work through the process to get it to
you, yeah.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Is there any high-level information that was garnered that is charting the
course for the PSC over the next couple years? Is there anything that you can
comment on that at this time?
Greg Tuer:
— Sorry, can you repeat the question?
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Just wondering if you have any high-level commentary around the findings of
those surveys. And how do those surveys go about charting the course for the
next couple years? And I guess lastly, when would the next survey be? Would
that be a two-year, ’25‑ish timeline?
Greg Tuer:
— We do it every two years. The plan is to do another round of surveys in this
upcoming year. And so, yeah. I’ll stop there.
Nathaniel Teed:
— Great. And then are there any high-level thoughts as to what was garnered
from that survey? I guess specifically maybe I’m . . . And I know I
could probably get the information when I have the survey, but looking at
breakdowns of women employed, Indigenous folks, 2SLGBTQ [two-spirit, lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning], that data, and if
there’s anything that you can share with me tonight.
Greg Tuer:
— I’m sorry. We don’t have that level of detail here. What I do have, and maybe
I will point to is — you talked about sort of high-level trends — something we
have seen over the last three surveys, so that’s 2018, 2021, and 2023, is a
fairly significant increase in the survey response rate.
So in 2018, we had
approximately 54 per cent of the employees in government respond to the survey.
2021, that was 63 per cent. And then most recently, in fall of 2023, that was
at 70 per cent. So I mean, short of kind of providing that detail we don’t have
here, I think what we are seeing is employees are seeing it’s a meaningful
mechanism to tell us what the organization’s doing well and maybe areas that
they’d like to see improvement.
As well it’s seeing that
they’re seeing actions being taken, where we’ve given you feedback. And that
two-year cycle really has provided us with an opportunity. We do the survey.
We’re able to take a look at the information that’s provided, plan for the actions
we’re going to take, and then go from there. So it’s a good cadence for us in
order to make sure that it’s a meaningful tool.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
And I would maybe just add — Greg put it well though — I think when you see an
increasing rate of engagement on a tool like this, I think it speaks well to
the thought that there’s value in participating in that process. And the fact
that we’re seeing increased levels of engagement with employees, I think, you
know, really makes that point without us even having to make that point.
I think it shows that people
do view there being value and that means that, because they’re seeing there
being value, it is an important tool that is used by managers within the public
service. And you know, I can’t speak to kind of all of the different mechanisms
and ways that is the case, but I can tell you that it’s taken very seriously.
The responses that are received really provide a lot of insight and guidance
for decisions that are taken within the public service going forward.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
You know, I really appreciate that. With that survey, is that specifically for
PSC, or is that a global provincial-government-employee-type survey?
Pat Bokitch:
— It’s for all employees in all ministries.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
All employees. Like you mention, it is great to see that increase year over
year of engagement.
[18:45]
And certainly I think people
do see these as mechanisms of being able to communicate and to be able to have
their voices heard.
I have a few more questions
here. I think I’m going to jump back really quickly to a moment from your
preamble, just to ask about if you could give me a little bit of high-level
about the work that PSC did with the implementation of the marshals service.
That stood out. And I know it has been moving forward quickly, quicker than in
some early estimations. Do you have some insight into, what work did the PSC do
to make this happen?
Greg
Tuer: —
Thanks for the question. Yeah, I mean I think the marshals is a really good
example of the supports that PSC does provide to the overall organization.
So there would be a point in
time where government announced that they were going to launch this program,
service, and so then folks from our HR business partner team that’s assigned to
that ministry would start to work with their senior management. We would be
providing, or we did provide support in terms of recruiting some of those very
first employees that would be brought in to help design the organization. We
have an organizational development branch who would also come in and provide
support just on org design. So you know, what is the purpose of this
organization? What are we trying to achieve? And then working through a process
of identifying, okay, then what’s that going to look like? And I think we would
all kind of typically would think of an org chart.
And so all of this predates
that. Having those discussions with the senior leaders around, you know, why
are we here? What are we trying to accomplish? What sort of structures do we
need to have in place in order to make this a success?
And then following through
that, helping provide support in terms of recruitment. And then, you know,
classification. So we’ve determined, these are the roles that we’re going to
need. Working with them around defining what each of the jobs might look like.
Helping them write job descriptions. Classifying them in the Government of
Saskatchewan’s classification plans, which then sets the compensation for those
positions. And then ultimately supporting those managers as they hire the
folks, and then any of the related HR issues that might come up along the way.
Flowing right through to now
the staff in our HR service centre are ensuring that the people who are there
are getting paid, that they’re getting access to their benefits. And then we
just have an ongoing support to the program as it becomes like any other
Government of Saskatchewan program.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Do you have any dollar figure for the budget estimates as to how much that
process has costed? Is that a tough . . . maybe a bit.
Greg Tuer:
— Yeah, we don’t track our work in that manner. That’s embedded in the work of
what the HR business partner teams do. That’s embedded in the work of
organizational development. What I would say is that that work is ongoing every
day in government. It’s not always of course a new program, but it’s
supporting, you know, as there’s a change in mandate, or the organization — you
mentioned earlier — sees efficiencies. Well maybe, you know, what can we then
assist you doing in making sure that you’re best using the funds that you have
as an organization? So we do not track it on that sort of a project basis.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Appreciate. I think with the last . . . I think I’ve got about 12
minutes left. I will move into some final hot-topic questions, and just very
topical. I’m wondering if PSC foresees any effects of this tariff environment,
of the kind of roller coaster environment that we’re currently on. Does PSC
have any contingencies, or have there been thoughts put forward as to how this
might affect this ministry?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I appreciate the question, and I think I would agree with elements of the
preamble about there being a very rapidly evolving situation. Yeah, we saw it
even today. I mean, there was a significant change in direction announced by
the US government with regard to tariffs levied on countries that, you know,
were initially announced for tariffs. It’s actually kind of an interesting
rerun of what Canada and Mexico have gone through already, but you know, with
the rest of the world kind of going through that same process now also.
The short answer is — and
I’ve said this in the House before as well — you know, as we see impacts
directly, we’re going to respond to that. But if we are, you know, trying to
respond to every single new pronouncement coming from President Trump and the White
House, we’d be doing nothing but responding to new pronouncements coming from
President Trump and the White House.
So you know, the example
where we do have a tariff imposed on steel and aluminum across the country, but
obviously a significant impact here in the city of Regina. Now I look forward
to maybe talking about this a bit more in CIC [Crown Investments Corporation of
Saskatchewan] estimates later tonight. But you know, we responded, right, I
mean where there was a direct impact. We knew what the impact was going to be
or potentially could be, based on something that was real, not something that
was speculated on, and we moved to respond to that.
So you know, if we see direct
impacts, if there are direct impacts, I think, yeah. Never can prejudge what’s
going to come out of the White House on any given day. But where we’re at right
now, you know, Canada has avoided what could have been the worst-case
scenarios. I think that has largely receded. You know, always subject to change
I guess, but largely receded.
We continue to have some
challenges in that tariff environment. You know, steel and aluminum are two of
them, but steel from Saskatchewan’s perspective. You know, there’s concern
around the existing tariffs that have been in place, and they’re not categorized
as tariffs, but the countervail and the anti-dumping duties that have been
imposed on our forestry sector by the Obama administration. So this has been
going on for a decade now. Those have continued to be a significant challenge,
and frankly I wish the Government of Canada had paid more heed to engaging with
the USTR, the US [United States] Trade Representative’s office in the last
decade prior to this on forestry.
You know, we’re going to have
to be alive and constantly monitoring what’s coming out of the administration,
but you know, would there be any . . . to your specific question on
any sort of operational accounts or anything of that nature, there are not at
the Public Service Commission level.
But you know, I would say
kind of at a more macro level, if we’re talking about government or you know,
my area of responsibility on the Crown side of government, we’re going to be
very responsive and we’re going to be very nimble. And I think we’ve shown that
we can be very responsive and nimble to deal with real, real issues as they
arise, as opposed to being deeply reactive based on different pronouncements.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Oh, I really appreciate that. I think I’ll ask one more question, I think, and
that’s just around maybe the health of the pensions. Does PSC hold any
investments to cover future pension payments, liabilities? And if so, how much?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
No. The short answer is Plannera does all of that work, so we really do not.
Nathaniel
Teed: —
Okay. Well we’ve got a few minutes left, but I am . . .
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well we can deem it to be 7 if you . . .
Nathaniel
Teed: —
You know what, if you’re all right with that, Minister, then I am going to deem
that we’ve hit the 7:00 because I’ve hit my questions for the night. I would
just maybe say in closing, just thank you so much for this conversation this
evening, thank you so much to the officials who came to speak about the work
that you’re doing.
One thing that I find in this
role is . . . Certainly I’ve seen a couple different roles and so
it’s jumping into something new and always really interesting for me to learn
more about what each one of these really important sections of our provincial
government do.
And you know, as someone
. . . look at the PSC and it’s doing its very vital role in
administering human resources in the province. So I just really appreciate this
opportunity and just want to thank the minister, officials, and all the folks who
make this happen this evening.
Chair
Steele: — Okay, seeing that it’s
agreed upon, we’re going to . . . Being we’re going to adjourn the
consideration of Public Service Commission estimates today, Minister, do you
have any closing comments?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well very brief. Number one, thanks very much for the questions. We’ve been
critic and minister roles on a number of different files. And I can tell you,
I’ve always appreciated estimates because very good questions, you know, really
seeking answers. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate the tone as well. So
thank you for that.
Also thanks to Greg, and
through Greg to our entire team here at the Public Service Commission who, you
know, show their dedication every day. And I just want to say a genuine thank
you to the entire team for the work that’s being done. Kind of see the tip of
the iceberg here on estimates, but there’s a team that does a huge amount work.
So I just want to say thank you to them, and thank you to the committee, Mr.
Chair.
Chair
Steele: — Thank you. Well the
committee will now recess until 7:30.
[The
committee recessed from 18:56 until 19:32.]
Chair
Steele: — We’ll now consider the
2025‑26 estimates and the 2024‑25 supplementary estimates
no. 2 for vote 175, Debt Redemption; and the 2025‑26 estimates for
vote 176, Sinking Fund Payments — Government Share; vote 177, Interest on Gross
Debt — Crown Enterprise Share.
General Revenue Fund
Debt Redemption, Sinking Fund
and Interest Payments
Votes 175, 176, 177
Chair
Steele: — We will begin with the
vote on 175, Debt Redemption. Minister Harrison is here with officials from the
Crown Investments Corporation. I remind the officials to identify yourselves
before speaking and do not touch the microphones. And Hansard will operate the
mikes to turn them on for you. Minister Harrison, will you please give us your
opening comments and introduce your officials.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Sure. Well thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks again to members of the
committee for reconvening here this evening for the estimates on Crown
Investments Corporation. I’ll start, Mr. Chair, by introducing officials here
from Crown Investments Corporation: Kent Campbell, president and CEO [chief
executive officer] of Crown Investments Corporation; Cindy Ogilvie, senior
vice-president and CFO [chief financial officer] of CIC; Kyla Hillmer — back
there — vice-president, Crown services at CIC; Tim Highmoor, vice-president,
Crown planning and priorities; David Brock, vice-president, Crown energy
security; and Brad Hunt, who’s back there as well, controller of finance and
administration.
And thank you, Mr. Chair. It
is my pleasure to appear before the Standing Committee on Crown and Central
Agencies to answer questions related to the budgetary aspects of the Crown
Investments Corporation, and I’ll use CIC for short. With me this evening is
Mr. Kent Campbell, and I introduced the other leaders at CIC who will introduce
themselves as well when they speak at the microphone the first time.
As our province navigates the
uncertainty imposed on us by tariffs from the United States and China, CIC
continues its strong leadership and support to Saskatchewan’s commercial Crown
corporations, so our Crown sector remains resilient and responsive and
continues to contribute to the quality of life in a growing province, fuelling
economic growth and delivering on the priorities of Saskatchewan people.
A key focus for our
government is to deliver affordability to residents, businesses, and
communities. Last year our province removed the carbon tax on home heating,
saving families across Saskatchewan an average of $400 on their SaskEnergy
bills. This year and very recently, Saskatchewan took the lead again, becoming
the first carbon tax-free province in Canada. As of April the 1st, 2025, the
provincial government is pausing the industrial carbon tax under its
output-based performance standards program.
As a result, SaskPower will
stop charging the carbon tax on its customers, putting more money back in the
pockets of Saskatchewan people and delivering further savings on SaskPower
bills. This change is estimated to save the average residential customer over
$100 per year, while farms can expect to save over $300 per year.
The Crown sector continues to
balance the growing demand for safe and reliable services with ongoing
infrastructure requirements, all while maintaining rates that are among the
most affordable in the country. Through finding efficiencies and diligently managing
costs, Saskatchewan’s total utility costs for 2024‑25 are expected to be
the second lowest in Canada, with auto insurance rates remaining among the
lowest in the country.
Beyond their core business,
Crowns are also exploring innovative programs to deliver affordability for the
people that they serve. SaskPower’s free energy assistance program provides a
home walk-through, one-on-one energy coaching, and the installation of energy
saving products. This program can save eligible income-qualified customers up
to $230 per year on their utility bills.
SaskPower also offers the
northern First Nations home retrofit program to eligible customers who use
electric heat as their primary heating source. After receiving no-cost home
retrofits, these customers can save on average more than $500 per year on their
electricity bills. In addition, SaskTel participates in the federal connecting
families initiative, which offers discounted internet services to low-income
families and seniors.
These are but a few examples
of the diligent work of our Crown sector employees to ensure Saskatchewan
remains the most affordable place in Canada to live, work, raise a family, and
start a business.
The Crown sector contributed
$845 million in dividends to the General Revenue Fund between 2019‑2020
and 2023‑24. The sector’s financial returns support the government’s
continued delivery on priorities, including health care, education, safer
communities, and affordability measures. Through prudent financial management,
Saskatchewan’s Crowns will continue to contribute to the province’s fiscal
balance and remain competitive.
The Crown sector is making a
record level of investment and supporting the growth and prosperity of
Saskatchewan with a forecast of $2.4 billion in capital spending in 2024‑25,
and a projected total of $13.3 billion over the next five years. Crown
corporations are investing heavily to ensure safe, reliable, high-quality
service delivery for the people of Saskatchewan.
Infrastructure renewal and
new construction enhance safety and integrity of our Crown assets. Meanwhile
these activities help to stimulate local economies with quality jobs and
procurement opportunities, and support the delivery of high levels of services
that our homes, businesses, and industries can count on.
I would like to highlight a
few of the capital projects. SaskPower’s 370-megawatt Great Plains power
station near Moose Jaw is now online generating reliable baseload power. More
than 300 Saskatchewan companies participated in its construction, resulting in
over $266 million contributed to local economies, of which nearly
$49 million was of Indigenous participation.
SaskPower’s capital plan also
includes $710 million on expansions to the Aspen power station and the
Ermine and Yellowhead projects for increased new generation, $311 million
in growth projects to connect new customers to the grid, and $67 million
in various strategic initiatives such as smart meter deployment and the
development of the Regina Operations and Maintenance Complex.
In addition, SaskPower
completed the 20-megawatt Regina battery energy storage system in July of 2024.
This investment is the first of its kind in the province, helping to balance
load when demand spikes for short periods of time, delivering a more stable and
reliable electricity supply.
The provincial government is
committed to delivering enhanced connectivity across Saskatchewan to better
serve rural communities and highway corridors. SaskTel has rapidly expanded its
5G network since 2021, completing upgrades on more than 660 cell sites in the
province, including more than 380 that serve medium- to smaller-size
communities, Indigenous communities, rural and resort areas, and highways.
SaskTel recognizes the
importance of broadband as a critical component of modern society. The Crown
corporation continues to expand their infiNet network to more communities
through its multi-phased rural fibre initiative. As of January 2025, SaskTel
has launched infiNet service in 29 rural communities, with additional locations
to be fibre-ready in the remainder of 2024‑25.
SaskEnergy successfully
completed a few expansion projects in the past number of years. They delivered
the $40 million Moose Jaw supply gas project in 2022‑23, to support
anticipated regional growth, including natural gas service to the Great Plains
power station. The Crown also completed the Regina west gas line project and
natural gas transmission line expansion project in Melfort in 2024.
In 2023‑24 SaskWater
completed construction of the 65‑kilometre Regina regional non-potable
water supply, which will service the region from Belle Plaine to Regina.
Cargill, that plans to commission their canola crush plant in 2026, will be the
first customer receiving water from the system.
One of Lotteries and Gaming
Saskatchewan’s land-based operators, the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority,
or SIGA, is carrying out multi-million-dollar expansions of the Northern Lights
Casino in Prince Albert and the Dakota Dunes Casino south of Saskatoon. These
expansions will create about 100 full-time equivalent jobs and provide
significant employment for trades and subtrades during the construction period.
Through capital investments and construction activities, the Crown sector is
directly supporting local job creation, stimulating regional economies, and
delivering opportunities to Saskatchewan families and communities. The enhanced
and renewed infrastructure enables safe, reliable, quality services across the
province.
Capital investments require
robust local supply chains. Our Crown corporations continue to engage industry
groups to improve the capacity and competitiveness of local businesses, and
where possible, prioritize Saskatchewan and Canadian services and suppliers. In
the first three quarters of 2024‑25 the Crown sector awarded
$1.2 billion to Saskatchewan suppliers, including $92 million to
Indigenous suppliers, contributing to the province’s overall financial growth
and increasing Indigenous participation in the economy.
CIC has established a team of
procurement leaders from the Crown sector, the Ministry of SaskBuilds and
Procurement, and more recently, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, to
collectively find ways and opportunities to strengthen the Saskatchewan supply
chain. Now this work becomes even more critical than ever as the province and
Canada face the developments that are occurring right now. While the Crowns
have limited relationships with American suppliers, with about 3 per cent of
procurement directly coming from the United States, the current supply chain is
dependent on the US and could lead to indirect price increases for
Saskatchewan.
The procurement collaboration
team is working to reduce impacts by converting spending from out of province
to in province wherever feasible and improve local supply chain capacity and
attractiveness. Most recently, we saw SaskPower and SaskEnergy prioritizing
local steel for their infrastructure projects, buying thousands of pounds of
material and more than 100 kilometres of pipe from Evraz steel.
[19:45]
The Crowns are helping to
keep over 400 hard-working Saskatchewan people on the job right here in Regina.
Crown and public sector procurement efforts support local businesses and talent
and help invest money back into Saskatchewan. Beyond their commercial mandate,
Crown corporations are exploring how they can deliver additional value to the
customers they serve and the communities they operate in.
SaskEnergy continues to help
residential and commercial customers with energy efficiency rebates when they
upgrade their natural gas equipment with high-efficiency models. These
investments help SaskEnergy customers reduce natural gas usage, increase indoor
comfort, and lower energy bills over the long term.
SaskPower’s commercial energy
optimization program provides free consulting services to businesses seeking
energy efficiency savings. SaskPower is also investing in the future of
Saskatchewan’s workforce, partnering with the Saskatchewan Distance Learning
Centre to offer high school students and adults online fourth and fifth-class
power engineering courses.
As part of its commitment to
accessibility, SaskTel began offering the RAZ mobility memory phone as part of
its wireless device lineup in October of 2024. The device is designed with an
easy-to-use menu and controls for those with memory loss, low vision, early
dementia, Alzheimer’s, or seniors who prefer a simple wireless experience.
In August 2024 SaskTel
celebrated the grand opening of its new store in the city of Prince Albert. The
new store concept, which will serve as a blueprint for all future store
remodels, was purposefully designed with enhanced interactive displays and accessibility
features.
In the same month last year
SaskTel also announced with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency that
Saskatchewan becomes the first province to transition all primary 911
communication centres to the next-generation 911 environment. As a result of
this important work, the public will be able to share text messages, video, and
photos through the 911 system.
To help reduce barriers to
obtaining a Saskatchewan photo ID [identification] for individuals who are
dealing with housing insecurity, SGI [Saskatchewan Government Insurance] is
working with other government agencies and community partners on an alternative
method of validating an individual’s identity, and developing a guarantor form
that would enable someone from partnering organizations to confirm an
individual is a Saskatchewan resident. Unhoused individuals do not have an ID
or a permanent address to meet the identity and residency requirements for a
Saskatchewan photo ID card.
In 2025 15,000 new irrigation
acres will be in service thanks to ongoing collaboration between SaskWater and
the Water Security Agency. Finally, LGS, Lotteries and Gaming Saskatchewan,
forecasts that in 2024‑25 it will provide over $45 million in
commissions to nearly 570 video lottery terminal site contractors across the
province. All these examples demonstrate the important role of our Crown
corporations in enriching the quality of life for the people of Saskatchewan.
CIC and the Crown sectors
support the government’s growth plan through fiscally responsible commercial
operations, reliable and affordable essential service delivery, and targeted
public policy programming. The sector is also a main player in planning and
ensuring our utilities’ readiness to meet the energy needs of a growing
Saskatchewan for many decades to come.
Affordable and reliable
baseload power is the foundation of this growth. Saskatchewan is taking an
all-of-the-above approach to power generation, examining the potential to
extend coal-fired assets to help bridge the province’s electricity system to a
nuclear future.
SaskPower is investing in the
future of nuclear energy in the province. Saskatchewan is working with GE
Hitachi to explore the potential of deploying a BWRX reactor. In May 2024
SaskPower identified two sites near the city of Estevan to support final site
selection for the first potential small modular reactor.
In September 2024 the Crown
established SaskNuclear as its subsidiary to advance the province’s SMR [small
modular reactor] project through the regulatory and licensing processes. To
support a new and robust nuclear industry in Saskatchewan, CIC is coordinating
the development of a provincial nuclear supply chain and workforce, attracting
investment in nuclear energy, and advocating provincial positions to the
Government of Canada.
Additionally, CIC has
invested in a two-year project with the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining
Suppliers Association, SIMSA and its partners to prepare local businesses to
sell goods and services to the Canadian and global nuclear markets.
CIC is actively collaborating
with Saskatchewan post-secondary institutions and industry partners to devise
strategies to meet Saskatchewan’s future nuclear workforce needs.
This important and complex
work led by CIC and SaskPower builds on Saskatchewan’s strengths in uranium
mining and will create local jobs, boost local and regional supply chains, and
increase economic development in the province. This supports Saskatchewan’s
future to nuclear power generation.
And with our keen focus on
affordability and reliability, I have directed SaskPower to examine extending
the life of existing coal-fired plants. Electricity generation is exclusively
within our constitutional authority as a province, and it’s imperative that we
maintain a reliable and affordable power supply to support our needs and
growth.
Managing increasing
uncertainty in the world and complex issues facing the Crown sector and our
province requires collaboration. It’s vital that Crowns, ministries, and
agencies work as one team leveraging each other’s strengths and expertise to
deliver on the province’s priorities; standing up for Saskatchewan families,
communities, businesses, and industries; and enabling our province to continue
to grow and thrive.
The collaboration initiative,
led by CIC, has now grown to include 36 Crowns, ministries, treasury board
Crowns, and government agencies, leading and delivering initiatives through
eight strategic teams. The collective set ambitious goals for 2024‑25 to
achieve $50 million in cost savings and attract $1 billion in new
private sector investment. I’m pleased to report that as of Q3 — third quarter
— of 2024‑25 the collaboration initiative has forecasted
$50.3 million in cost savings and more than $1.3 billion in new
private sector investments to Saskatchewan, a tremendous success.
Finally I want to highlight
our Crown corporations’ social investments in communities, charitable
organizations, and education and employment opportunities for Indigenous
peoples. SaskPower, SaskTel, SGI, SaskEnergy, and CIC have provided
$2 million a year to support STARS [Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service] in
Saskatchewan since 2012. To date, 30 million has been committed by the
five Crowns, helping to ensure emergency trauma services are available
throughout our province.
The Crown sector’s two-year
pilot program, Crown Career Pathways, is providing internship opportunities for
Indigenous post-secondary graduates with Crown corporations. The program’s goal
is to retain these graduates in Saskatchewan, increasing Indigenous
participation in the provincial economy and delivering a capable, up-and-coming
workforce for the Crown, public, and private sectors.
CIC continues to invest in
its Indigenous bursary program, providing more than $2.2 million over the
past five years to support Indigenous students’ education goals and enable
career opportunities by building a skilled and inclusive labour force. Both
programs are in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to
Action no. 92 which calls for promoting equitable access to jobs,
training, and education opportunities for Indigenous peoples in the corporate
sector.
In 2024 SaskTel announced a
new recycling collaboration with the Government of Saskatchewan in support of
the Phones for a Fresh Start program with an initial donation of nearly 2,500
late-model government-owned devices. Since it launched in 2009, PFFS [Phones
for a Fresh Start] has diverted more than 143,000 electronic devices from the
landfill while helping survivors of domestic abuse, and youth transitioning out
of the care of the Ministry of Social Services.
In partnership with
Saskatchewan Polytechnic, SaskWater established two scholarships to be awarded
to selected Saskatchewan high school graduates entering the water resources
program at Sask Polytechnic beginning in ’25‑26. The scholarship is to
increase lagging enrolment in the water resources program, a requirement for
many front-line jobs at SaskWater.
SGI Canada announced a new
$2 million partnership with YWCA Regina, which helps fund operational and
programming costs for the healing lodge at the new Centre for Women and
Families that opened in Regina in November 2024.
Since 2019 SGI has
facilitated about $13.1 million for 870 community traffic safety projects
through the Provincial Traffic Safety Fund, providing up to $100,000 per
location to municipalities and Indigenous land or territories through traffic
safety grants, enabling communities to deliver traffic safety measures they may
not have been able to otherwise afford. This program is funded through net
revenue from photo speed-enforcement tickets, making communities safer for all
Saskatchewan residents.
By quarter 3 in 2024‑25,
LGS has distributed $5.1 million in charitable gaming grants to charitable
and non-profit groups and organizations in nearly 350 communities across the
province. By year-end, total charitable gaming grants are forecast to be
$7.1 million.
Led by CIC, our Crown
corporations are helping our thriving province to weather the current challenges
while also laying the groundwork for a prosperous future. I thank CIC, its
subsidiary Crowns, and the more than 11,000 dedicated Crown employees for their
professional service, their insight and innovation, and their commitment to
deliver excellence for the people of our province.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I
will conclude and look forward to responding to questions.
Chair
Steele: — Thank you, Minister,
We’ll go to MLA Ritchie.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for those opening remarks. I was following along quite
closely from last year and noted a few updates, a few things that were repeated
or mentioned last year. I may come back to that later on just to get some
updated numbers. But I think where I’d like to start is by thanking all the
officials for being here this evening to support the budgetary estimates for
Crown Investment Corporation.
In reviewing the notes from
last year, I notice that we did discuss, you know, some of the reasons for the
significant drop in the consolidated net earnings in past years. I’m wondering
if you could tell me what is CIC’s forecasted consolidated earnings for ’24
. . . or what they were for ’24‑25 and budgeted for ’25‑26,
and included in that, a breakdown by the business enterprise.
Kent
Campbell: — Kent Campbell, president
and CEO, Crown Investments Corporation. So in terms of budget last year by
Crown, LGS had a budgeted net income of 177 million. This year the budget
is 201 million, and the third-quarter forecast for ’24‑25 is
204 million. Turning to SaskPower, the budget for ’24‑25 was
191.5 million. The budget for ’25‑26 is 126.3 million, and our
Q3 forecast was 125.8 million.
[20:00]
Turning to SGI Canada, the
budget for ’24‑25, last year, 127.4 million. The budget for ’25‑26
is 90 million. And then the Q3 forecast for ’24‑25,
79.2 million.
Turning to SaskTel, the
budget for ’24‑25 was $96 million in net income. The budget for ’25‑26
is 116.6 million. The forecast for Q3 was 90 million.
SaskEnergy, the budget for
last year was 48.4. The budget for this year is 42.5. And the Q3 forecast is
60.4.
Turning to SaskWater, the
budget for last year was 7.3 million. The budget for ’25‑26 is
6 million, and the Q3 forecast is 7.4.
Oh yes, maybe I’ll just add
the Auto Fund, which is of course not part of the consolidated Crown earnings
but does affect summary financials. So in terms of the Auto Fund the budget
last year was a negative $207.3 million. The budget for ’25‑26 is a
negative 230.8 million, and in the Q3 forecast was minus
106.3 million.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Thank you. What would be the total amounts then for that? Assuming we’ve got
everything I think that are normally reported out, because you had SaskTel,
SaskEnergy, SGI Canada, SaskWater, SOCO [Saskatchewan Opportunities
Corporation]. I see SOCO’s maybe I guess wrapped up. And also CIC AMI [CIC
Asset Management Inc.], and then the consolidation adjustments. Are you
typically in that column?
Kent Campbell:
— Yes, so for sure I can. In terms of the . . . we do divide these up
in terms of government business entities which are your for-profits. And then
if you look in the budget document, on page 25 there’s a listing of the
government business entities. Some of those are CIC; some are straight through
the General Revenue Fund. But for ours, we divide into government business
entities, and then CIC and its expenses and other adjustments are under
government service organizations.
So I’ll give you the total
for both of those. When you total the total government business entity income
numbers — and that would be the summary of the numbers that I’d just previously
given you — the total for the ’24‑25 budget came in at
440.3 million. The ’25‑26 budget numbers, 351.8 million. And
then the Q3 forecast was 460.5 million.
When you include the costs
for CIC, CIC AMI, and then other internal adjustments or differences between
Crowns’ internal adjustments, you get what would be the government or the CIC
consolidated numbers. And so the budget for the ’24‑25 CIC consolidated
numbers was 456.9 million. The budget for ’25‑26 is
455.3 million. And then the Q3 forecast, 423.8.
And so what you see there is
really a lot of continuity on CIC consolidated from year to year. So the
budget-to-budget variance for CIC consolidated is a negative 1.6 million,
and then the ’25‑26 budget-to-Q3 variance would be a positive
31.5 million.
Erika Ritchie: — Okay.
So yeah, I’m not sure if we’re speaking to the same numbers, because I did
notice in the transcript from last year, it had been quoted at 663.6 as the
budgeted number for ’24‑25. And you, I think, just quoted me 456. I’m not
sure why I’ve got such a large discrepancy there.
Kent Campbell:
— We’ll just double-check on that.
Okay yeah, the difference
there in the numbers that I gave you is the Auto Fund. So if you add the Auto
Fund back in, that’s how you get that extra.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay. Well yeah. You know, I was going to maybe even ask just a little bit more
of an explanation on the Auto Fund, because that one you said was a negative
amount. So can you explain to me why it reports as negative? Like what are the
implications of that?
Kent Campbell:
— In relation to the Auto Fund numbers, we had projected a loss last year in
the neighbourhood of just over $200 million. And so the Auto Fund is meant
to, over time, be a break-even proposition. It’s not a Crown corporation.
There’s no profits from the Auto Fund that go back into CIC. And so over time
you will see it vary from profits to losses, but over time it is meant to break
even.
And so last year we were
projecting a loss. That ended up being a loss not as large as we were
anticipating. And in part that is due to the fact that the markets were really
more positive than anticipated.
So really, the big drivers of
your Auto Fund balance are premiums, auto registrations that people pay in, and
then that’s offset by claims that people make when they have accidents. And so
that is supplemented by investment returns.
And so what we saw last year
was that really the markets had returned better than we were forecasting, and
so what we thought was going to be a loss of more than 200 ended up being more
like a negative 100.
This year we’re thinking more
similar to as we were projecting last year. So as an example, the SGI
investments are projecting an overall portfolio return of about 3.9 per cent,
and that involves a range of investments. Some of those are in equity markets.
Some of it are in debt markets, property, treasuries.
And so that would be the
overall, that’s sort of the overall numbers that would get you to what we’re
projecting for this year and last year.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay. So originally last . . . For ’24‑25 you budgeted
207 million. The forecast brought it to 106. For next year, ’25‑26,
you are budgeting a loss of 230.8 — just to make sure I’m following along.
Okay, so you’re saying that
it’s again a more pessimistic number moving into this new year. And so what
will be driving that pessimism? Or I don’t mean to call it pessimism. I mean,
I’m not trying to sort of mislead it. Just like, what’s informing that budget
estimate? It’s a simple question.
Hon. Jeremy
Harrison: —
Yes. Just I’ll maybe speak to the Auto Fund specifically and, you know, Kent
and other officials can maybe add a bit more around that. But I think it’s
important to remember as far as the nature of the Auto Fund — which is really
the fund under which we pay for insured vehicles and loss and all the rest of
it — the two elements of that are on the cost side, then also on the investment
and return side.
You know, there’s a lot of
challenges in making these projections, I think, on both sides. You know, SGI
are obviously not a line item, so they’re not a part of the estimates process
directly. But I think what SGI would say is that the cost per repair of
vehicles have gotten significantly higher, significantly higher.
This has been a big part of
the pressure that’s been put onto the Auto Fund. So you know, I think a real
world example for folks who are watching would very much understand is 20 years
ago if you in your vehicle or there was a vehicle that backed into a pole, you
know, it had a bumper that was damaged, you know, you’d replace the bumper and
no problem.
The challenge now, just in
that example, is that a bumper isn’t just a bumper. A bumper has sensors that
are embedded as a part of the bumper. The bumper would have, you know, in some
case cameras that would be a part of that system as well. So it’s not as simple
as pounding out a dent, which likely would have been a solution in a lot of
cases. So you’re looking at very, very significant increases in the cost per
repair. So that’s one element of the pressure that’s been put onto the Auto
Fund.
Another element to that is
the volatility that we’ve seen, you know, in equities, obviously. I mean, we’ve
had that demonstrated in the last two days or last week in spades. I think the
S & P [Standard & Poor’s] was up 9 per cent today, and I think the
Nasdaq was up about 13 per cent. You know, that follows on the heels of
declines of equivalent proportions in the couple of days before that.
So you have incredible
volatility in the equities market that drives, you know, part of the return or
projected returns from the Auto Fund’s investments. So it’s a real challenge to
project some of these things, and you know, it’s been a challenge for SGI. But
there are undeniably pressures that are on the Auto Fund. And you know, we want
to be realistic about what we are projecting on these things, and probably
leaning a little bit more towards the pessimistic side so that we are being
realistic.
[20:15]
But that, you know, obviously
informs how we plan at SGI and how the company is managed as well. So I’m not
sure, maybe Kent can probably speak much more eloquently than I on some of
those things.
Kent Campbell:
— No, absolutely right, Minister. And the cost of vehicles, it’s been really
quite extraordinary. You know, I’ve seen data that says sort of pre-COVID to
post-COVID, the average cost of a Canadian vehicle went from $40,000 to over
60, right. And so that’s just during that sort of three-year time period. And
the amount of electronics and microchips and computers in vehicles now, it’s
just expanding all the time, and that drives a lot of that cost as well. So
maybe I’ll leave it at that.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yeah, so I mean definitely I think you’ve hit on a few things I was wondering
about. Minister, you mentioned the volatility in the markets and how that
impacts on the investments that SGI holds, and then of course the escalation in
cost, both for new vehicles and repairs. Lots of supply chain pressures.
I guess I kind of have two
follow-up questions to this before we move on. So kind of given the tariffs
that are being proposed or enacted on the auto sector, what sort of impact will
that have on these budgetary estimates? What sort of analysis is being
undertaken to sort of, you know, model these fluctuations, and what have they
shown you?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
So I’ll maybe take a bit of an initial answer on this. You know, we had a bit
of a discussion about this in the previous set of estimates, and there’s been a
bit of discussion in another forum in the House here about planning and about
how the government has responded to, you know, really which is an almost
hourly-changing situation coming from the President and from the White House.
What I’ve been very clear
about is saying that on substantive and real measures that we will be nimble in
responding. And you know, for an industry that actually has had tariffs imposed
on it on the steel and aluminum front, we moved very quickly, very quickly
through SaskEnergy and SaskPower to advance procurement of material that would
be necessary over the long term, but that we advance that procurement very
significantly and very quickly in order to respond to what was a real
situation.
If we were creating new
policy initiatives based on every musing coming out of the White House, I mean,
we’d be doing nothing but responding to new musings coming out of the White
House. Because literally it’s changing every hour, and today was a pretty good
example of that.
You know, as we see and as
there are impacts, we’re going to respond. But we don’t know what those are. We
don’t know what those are. And as it relates to the Auto Fund, I mean, there
are challenges which we had talked about, and a lot of that has to do with the
increasing cost per repair per incident. So we’re going to work through that.
And you know, I have confidence in those who are managing our investment and on
the Auto Fund as well, that we’re doing the best that we possibly can do on
that front with a great deal of volatility, and obviously managing risk in that
as much as we can as well.
But we will respond as real,
tangible measures move forward. But I would say as well though that, you know,
in this rapidly changing environment, there were measures announced today that
resulted in the market swing that we saw. You know, I think by and large Canada
has not been subject to anywhere near worst-case scenarios on any of these
things.
And there are particular
industries where there are challenges. Steel and aluminum is an obvious one,
but there have been others. I mean the forestry sector has been subject to what
amounts to tariffs, but you know, is a countervailing and anti-dumping duty
combination for over a decade now that was imposed by the Obama administration.
And this is a huge issue.
We have been encouraging our
national government now. Tell you, from their very first International Trade
minister, which was Chrystia Freeland, I have been encouraging every single
minister to engage with the USTR to try and negotiate a way out of softwood
lumber. And it’s been, you know, really very frustrating that they had not
engaged on this issue. And a variety of reasons I’d surmise about why, you
know, negotiating on softwood lumber was not a priority for them. But they
didn’t. They didn’t engage.
And we have this industry
that’s been, you know, significantly impacted, including individual companies.
Like as an example here in Saskatchewan, NorSask Forest Products — I think the
only 100 per cent owned, Indigenous-owned forestry company in the entire
country — has 40‑plus million dollars sitting in a trust account because
they’ve been paying countervailing and anti-dumping duties that are entirely,
entirely unfair, entirely contrived by the US softwood lumber coalition.
So you know, there are issues
that exist now, but there are issues that had existed before as well, and we
need to engage on all of these things equally. And I’m concerned that some of
the existing trade challenges that exist, that had existed prior to this
administration, are being now entirely forgotten. And forestry is a big one.
We have tariffs, the Chinese
tariff circumstances by far the most significant and threatening issue that
we’re dealing with in this province right now. We’ve been engaging, you know,
the highest level of the Canadian government, but we had said our number one
priority for the new prime minister was to engage directly with China on canola
tariffs. This potentially could cost our agricultural producers hundreds of
millions if not more per year.
And again, what has been
heard about this? Very little. And why is that? Well I think it’s because it’s
our issue. So it’s deeply frustrating that these issues are, you know, that are
really impactful for rural Saskatchewan are somehow overlooked in this entire
discussion. But you know, we’re going to continue to engage on that. You know,
you may hear some news about a conversation that might have happened today.
We’re going to continue to engage on those matters and put them top of the list
because they’re top of the list for us.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that overview. I may come back to this later
because I was looking for a very specific answer on the Auto Fund and the
estimates that had been put forward. But I’ll leave that for now.
In a related vein, I want to
ask about the impact that the forecasted consolidated net earnings for ’25‑26
will incur due to the loss of funding from the output-based performance
standard related to the electricity funding pool. If you could provide a
precise number, that would be appreciated.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I think I’ll probably give a response on this, and you know, perhaps we may
have some more conversation on it. I spoke to this last night in SaskPower
estimates as well.
And there are a number of
elements that go along with the federal carbon tax. And there are a number of
timing issues that go along with elements of the federal carbon tax and how
money collected under the federal carbon tax — whether it be in the context of
the backstop and the Future Electricity Fund transfers that come from that —
that were collected up to 2023, 2019 to 2023, right. And then the output-based
system, which was the federal carbon tax that basically we had negotiated to
keep in Saskatchewan through a program that we would administer, as opposed to
the federal government taking money through the federal imposition of the
backstop of the federal carbon tax, or the part 2 C-tax, how we would manage
that through time.
So we have the Future
Electricity Fund component, of which I think there is about $480 million
that is outstanding or thereabouts which is federally directed. And I think we
found out about the priorities that the federal government had allocated the
FEF [Future Electricity Fund] funding to through a press release. I don’t think
they even gave us a heads-up. I know Minister Wilkinson didn’t talk to me about
it before it was announced anyway. Or if we found out, it would have been
minutes before they issued the press release.
You know, that money is money
that belongs to the Saskatchewan customers of SaskPower who have paid into
this. So we expect, number one, that that money is returned to Saskatchewan;
number two, that we have . . . Well I mean ideally this should be
directed by the Government of Saskatchewan as to where these resources are
allocated because they are from the customers of SaskPower. The federal
government should have nothing to do with this.
And I was pretty clear in
talking about some of these things yesterday, and I’ll repeat them, is that the
federal government have no jurisdictional authority over electricity
transmission or generation — none, zero. You couldn’t find a more clear provision
of the Constitution than 92A(1)(c) that gives exclusive authority to provincial
governments for electricity. So what they are doing is entirely
unconstitutional, and that was why we talked about our non-adherence to the
clean electricity regulations. And it’s a part of the reason why the
output-based system was ended.
You know, with regard to the
funds from the output-based system, there were two components to that. Half
went to the small modular reactor fund, which basically is held in a trust or
bank account. It’s not a trust, but it’s a separate fund that we administer for
future electricity investments, next-generation electricity investments for our
power utility. And the other part was through what we refer to as the clean
electricity transition grant, so the CETG. And there’s a timing issue on how
some of these things are calculated as well. But we had allocated, I think,
last year about $170 million for the CETG. I think . . .
A Member:
— It was 174.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
174, okay. And it was, you know, slightly higher this year for the CETG portion
of the OBPS. What I had said publicly, prior to estimates even — I think I said
it a couple of weeks ago — whatever is not going to be allocated through CETG
is not going to be spent. It’s a very simple proposition.
[20:30]
And you know, there were
stringent requirements around CETG about eligible expenditures, several of
those things which . . . You know, what we don’t take in, we will not
spend. It’s very simple.
And our priorities at
SaskPower, you know, we’re at a very interesting point right now, and we’re
making some very significant decisions that are going to have an incredible
impact on what that future of generation of electricity in this province looks
like, which has a massive impact on what capital expenditure plans are going to
look like. And you know, one of the things I referenced in my opening remarks
and I had the opportunity to talk about in estimates — after some time of
trying to get there but talking about — was the future of coal in Saskatchewan.
So you know, we believe there
is a future for coal here in this province. We’ve been working through very,
very detailed analysis. And assessment of our assets that we have here in the
province — which are in remarkably good condition, by the way — through both
SaskPower and third-party assessments show these assets to be in remarkably
good condition. Very much not just possible to life-extend, but in a relatively
straightforward fashion being able to life-extend our coal-generating assets at
a fraction of the capital cost of new-build gas and renewable.
So you know, as I said
yesterday, we’re not making any announcements. When we make the announcement,
it’ll be to employees; it will not be to a committee of the legislature. But
you know, there are a number of factors that are going into that consideration.
Costs are a part of it. Policy considerations are a big part of it as well, and
power generation security, which I’m happy to go into detail about. I’m not
going to right now, but all of these things have a very, very significant
impact on capital expenditures.
So to the member’s particular
question with regard to OBPS and the components of OBPS and the FEF funding as
well, you know, we expect the FEF funding to continue. The $490 million
that we are owed by the Government of Canada needs to be coming back to the
province, needs to be coming back to the province.
And what we don’t take in
this year — because we have not budgeted for any additional OBPS payments to
come in past this year — what does not come in this year, we will not spend.
It’s very straightforward.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay, so I’m looking at a table entitled, “Electricity sector revenue and
allocations for the year ended March 31st,” where it indicates that for the
OBPS electricity sector in ’24‑25, it was budgeted 280.9. Then the
forecast for the end of ’24‑25 fiscal year, 282.9. And then for ’25‑26,
it is budgeted at 346.6. And I’m just trying to understand these numbers. So I
notice that there’s also the SMR investment fund, investment account that also
has a contribution.
So would it be safe to say
that, you know, if you strike that 346.6 from the output-based electricity
sector as revenue, that that is what we will see, the effect on the
consolidated net earnings?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I understand what . . . The
opposition are trying to score points here and they’ve tried to make this
argument. This is not . . . What I have said repeatedly on the
output-based performance standards program, and I will repeat again here
tonight — you know, numerous times I’ve said this — what is not taken in by
SaskPower . . . Because we’re not collecting this. This is what you
would pay on your SaskPower bill.
So everybody had a federal
carbon tax line on their power bill, and you know, people want to look at what
it is. You can see what it is. I mean, depending on your household or business
use, we’re talking about, you know, potentially hundreds of dollars a month
that you were paying in federal carbon tax on your SaskPower bill.
So the way the federal
government had set up their part 2, and this is the industrial carbon tax
. . . So we had already taken it off the home heating side, which was
your SaskEnergy bill. And the rest of the consumer carbon tax was removed about
10 days ago, on April the 1st, and that’s why people are seeing a reduction at
the price in gas at the pump right now, because that’s been removed.
The other part of that tax,
which is the part 2 carbon tax which applies to heavy emitters in Saskatchewan,
about 80 per cent of that heavy emitters part of the . . . And this
has been called the shadow or the hidden carbon tax. The Prime Minister calls
it the shadow carbon tax for whatever reason. This is the industrial part of
the carbon tax. Eighty per cent of that industrial carbon tax is charged to
SaskPower.
So there’s about 160
registered companies that are a part of that part 2 industrial carbon tax,
which is what we removed. Eighty per cent of the dollars that are paid into
that carbon tax were paid by SaskPower customers, which makes complete and
utter . . . utterly no sense. Basically this is the federal
government charging a tax on a public utility which is charged to individual
ratepayers. For what reason? For what reason? To make them turn their heat down
in December?
I mean it’s outrageous. The
policy rationale is outrageous. But this is something that is supported and has
been strongly supported by the opposition in this province, by the federal
government, and by the opposition party, the opposition New Democrats who are
part of the federal governing coalition.
What we did, Mr. Chair, is we
removed the output-based system from people’s SaskPower bills. This is, at the
end of the day, what consumers need to understand about the industrial carbon
tax. Eighty per cent of the industrial carbon tax was SaskPower. We took it off
their bill, and the money that would have been taken in through that is not
going to be spent. It is a very straight line, and I believe that those
listening understand that as well.
The money that was taken in
then had to be allocated to Liberal government priorities through the CETG.
That was the deal. And what we’re not taking in, we’re not spending. That
simple.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well I’m just trying to get a straight answer to a very simple question. I
don’t think I need to have a big, long-winded explanation about everything that
goes into it. I’m just really interested in the numbers. So I do see that it’s
also listed here that the — and you spoke to the number earlier — like there
was 140 million budgeted in ’24‑25 for the clean electricity
transition grant, and then for budget year ’25‑26 it’s listed at 174.7.
So then I guess, is that the
difference that we’ll be seeing here in terms of now no longer will you see
these payments going out? And then how will that reflect on the consolidated
income?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I’ll reiterate. What we are not taking in through taxing people on their
SaskPower bill, we will not be spending. So the reason we eliminated the
industrial carbon tax, 80 per cent of which is SaskPower, is because it makes
no sense. It literally makes no sense.
The policy objective that the
Liberals posited for having an industrial carbon tax in place was that it would
change behaviour. That was the point of it. I mean it would be having a price
signal, meaning you’re paying more to heat your home, so therefore you will
heat your home less. That’s literally the . . . How silly is that?
We’re in Saskatchewan. It can be minus 40 in December, January, February.
Their idea was somehow we’re
going to send a price signal by making it more expensive to heat your house, so
therefore you’re going to turn the heat down. It was the height of lunacy to
start with. So no, we’re not going to be continuing with the OBPS. What we
don’t take in by people having that line item on their carbon tax, we’re not
spending.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay. Well I’m not sure I’m getting a very straight answer here. I am honestly
looking to do my fiduciary duty here, to understand what the cost implications
are to the estimates that we are here to discuss tonight, and how they’re going
to be impacted by changes, policy changes and decisions by your government, you
know, within a week of tabling this budget and having it voted off on.
I do have one final question
on this though, unfortunately. Would it be safe to say, based on
. . . I mean you’ve presented this issue as one essentially of a
flow-through, so no impact. It seemed to be what you’re suggesting. So what, if
any, effect will there be on the dividend that CIC provides to the General
Revenue Fund from this policy change?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah, the answer to that is very simple in that this year we didn’t take any
dividends from SaskPower and we were not budgeting for any dividends from
SaskPower next year either.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Thank you very much for that answer. I think this next question is more sort of
confirmatory. I understand that there is a five-year agreement to pay
$2 million to STARS. The agreement ends in 2028, I believe. So is that the
case for ’25‑26? $2 million to STARS again?
Kent Campbell:
— Yes, from the Crown sector, $2 million this year which gets $400,000
from five of the Crowns.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay, great. Thank you very much. CIC has in the past few years repaid equity
advances to the Government of Saskatchewan. Will CIC or any of the Crowns be
making equity repayments to the GRF [General Revenue Fund] in 2025‑26?
Kent Campbell:
— No.
Erika Ritchie: — Okay.
And I think I know sort of the general basis to that response, you know, just
kind of going through the annual report. But I guess, what would be the plan
going forward in terms of repayment? Would those be contemplated at a future
date or does it just continue to accrue?
[20:45]
Kent Campbell:
— A couple things to point out. So in terms of dividend payments from the
Crowns to CIC, we have a dividend policy where we first look at what the
individual Crown’s reinvestment needs are in terms of capital spend as an
example. And so internal investment needs of the Crowns get determined first.
Then we look at things like debt levels of the Crowns before we then determine
what the capacity is to pay a dividend back to CIC.
And so you see over time that
we adjust those based on those conditions. So for example, recently we’ve
reduced the dividend target for SaskTel as an example, because we want them to
be further investing in rural internet expansion.
In terms of equity
repayments, those are not really budgeted for. Those are more related to
one-time events like an asset sale, or perhaps there was some extraordinary
earnings beyond what was budgeted. And those are the situations where you may
encounter those. Otherwise we follow a dividend policy based on the principles
that I outlined.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So what would be a recent example of that where an equity advance was made for
unusual circumstances, and how much would that have been?
Kent Campbell:
— Was your question around equity advances or equity repayments to the GRF?
Erika
Ritchie: —
Equity advances. If I understood you correctly, the advances would be going
from the government to the Crown, correct?
Kent Campbell:
— That’s correct, yes. If we were to invest more money in a Crown, and then an
equity repayment would be when we take additional monies out of a Crown.
And so for example, on some
recent equity repayments by Crowns, there was some in ’21‑22 where
SaskPower and SaskEnergy sold some assets. So SaskEnergy sold a Kisbey gas
processing plant in 2019. That gave them some extra earnings that were more
one-time, so that came back. Similarly that year SaskTel had excess earnings of
25 million that were deemed to be more one-time, so that again was repaid.
Erika Ritchie: — Can you
advise if Forkast Consulting and InterGroup consulting, both firms from
Manitoba, are still under contract to do work for CIC in 2025‑26?
Kent Campbell:
— So the Saskatchewan rate review panel do choose their own consultants, and
again that is to support their independence as a panel. We will pay — we at
CIC, that is — pay the costs of the consultants that they choose. And so
currently Forkast is on contract for the panel.
Erika Ritchie: — And can
you tell me how much was paid out to Forkast Consulting in ’24‑25? And
what is budgeted, if there’s a budgeted amount, for current fiscal?
Kent Campbell:
— Would it be possible to repeat the question?
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yes. Yes, I was asking how much was paid out to Forkast Consulting in the last
fiscal year, ’24‑25, and what is budgeted for the current. And likewise
for InterGroup.
Kent Campbell:
— So for ’24‑25, Forkast municipal and regulatory consulting was paid
$41,754.56 for ’24‑25.
Erika
Ritchie: —
And then similar for InterGroup?
Kent Campbell:
— There was nothing paid to InterGroup last year or this past fiscal year. We
did not have anything that went forward to the panel last year. We budget every
year for that purpose, but that funding was not utilized last year so we did
not make any payments to InterGroup.
Erika Ritchie: — Oh,
okay. So I guess what you’re telling me is that, I mean, there is a budgeted
amount and then just depending on the actual work during the year, you know,
you’ll experience a cost. So maybe the better question is, what was budgeted
for consultants for the rate review panel in ’24‑25, and what is
estimated for the current year?
Kent Campbell:
— Okay. For the Saskatchewan rate review panel consulting costs, ’24‑25
we had budgeted 171,000. The number that we have budgeted for rate review panel
consulting for ’25‑26 is 583,000.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Oh, okay. Well that’s a fairly sizable difference. I presume there’s some
important work planned for the coming year. Maybe we could have a bit of an
explanation of that work.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Sure. I’ll maybe speak to that. I think that the officials have spoken to the
budgeting elements to some of these things. I mean there’s contingencies that
we allocate. I think I know where the member is going, and I can tell her that
there have been no decisions taken about applications to the rate review panel.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So what explains the sizable increase in the budget estimate?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Probably ask officials. I was not . . .
Kent Campbell:
— Yes. I would say that typically we would normally budget closer to a million
dollars per year. And so the government was very clear last year that there
would be nothing going to the rate review panel, so our budgeting this year was
more similar to what we would normally budget for that amount.
[21:00]
Erika
Ritchie: —
And so what kind of work is contemplated that would cost in the neighbourhood
of a half million dollars by the rate review panel?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Kent had spoken to kind of the average annual allocation. There are allocations
made to be, my understanding . . . I mean I haven’t been minister in
this file for multiple years but my understanding is that there is generally an
annual allocation that is, you know, significantly probably higher than the
amount allocated this year. You know, if we don’t spend it, we don’t spend it.
But that’s the way it has worked.
Kent
Campbell: —
Yeah, maybe I’ll just clarify that million-dollar figure I gave you as a more
normal figure. That does include not just the consulting costs but the other
. . . That’s sort of the total budget for rate review panel activity,
so things like retainers for the rate review panel folks, any expenses that
might have, costs for public meetings. And we put that in as, you know, a
regular part of our budget.
Erika
Ritchie: —
There must be a report where you’ve got those tables sort of itemizing the
overall allocation to the rate review panel. Where would I find that?
Kent
Campbell: —
So that number would not be broken out as part of our operating budget in our
annual report, but you would see payments to the consultants in the pay
disclosure report under CIC that’s issued each year.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Is there not a cut-off of $50,000 on those payees? So if they come under that
like, I guess, forecasted at $41,000, it wouldn’t show up there?
Kent Campbell:
— That is correct. So only payments to individuals that would total $50,000 or
more show up in that report. Correct.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay. Thank you. How many FTEs has CIC budgeted for ’25‑26, and how many
FTEs did CIC have on staff in ’24‑25?
Kent Campbell:
— So staffing levels for CIC for ’24‑25, we had budgeted 68 total
permanent staff. And for this year, ’25‑26, we have budgeted 69 permanent
staff and three non-permanent term positions for a total of 72 employees.
And that’s broken down as
follows. In the president’s office, which includes communications, our
stakeholder relations, our Indigenous relations function, we’re projecting 12.
For Crown sector priorities, which includes things like collaboration and our work
around the collaboration committees, investment attraction, that’s eight. Crown
energy security, which includes our energy security group as well as our
nuclear group, is 11. Finance and administration, we have 22 people. And then
our Crown services division which provides HR, legal, and governance, both for
the purposes of CIC but also the Crown sector, is 16 people. That will get you
to a total of 69, and then I mentioned the three non-permanent term.
Erika
Ritchie: —
And what would those positions be?
Kent Campbell:
— We have three non-permanent. We have one in our Indigenous relations group,
we have one doing some work for us on records management in the president’s
office, and then we have one in human resources.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay, thank you for that response. What is the budgeted CIC salary expense for
’25‑26 and the forecast salary expense for CIC in ’24‑25?
Kent Campbell:
— So salaries and benefits for CIC for the ’24‑25 budget was $11,451,408;
for the ’25‑26 budget, $12,097,763. So that’s an increase of just over
646,000 or an increase of 5.6 per cent.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yeah, and I understand that, you know, CIC provides the guidance and direction
for the other Crowns. And I think last year we kind of went over a little bit
what some of those positions are undertaking. And I’m just trying to find my
spot here.
So you talked about
collaboration initiatives. And last year you mentioned savings of
53 million. And then I thought I heard you . . . and I don’t
know if it was a typo, because I thought I heard you say, this time around,
50.3 million. Anyway, so I’m just wondering, like what’s the increment
over . . . You know, what additional savings were there realized in
the last fiscal year over what was reported in estimates last year?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah, I’ll maybe speak to that. I think we had talked a little bit about that
in the introductory comments with regard to the savings through collaboration,
and I think we’re over $50 million in savings in collaboration through
three quarters. Is that about right?
You know, in addition to that
there’s investment attraction targets as well. And you know, in your preamble
to the question . . . and I’ll ask maybe Kent to speak to that
specific. We’ll find that information here in the immediate term here, but you
know, really understanding the role that CIC plays and the collaboration
initiatives we’ve undertaken at CIC and really kind of have expanded beyond
just the Crown corporations, even including SHA [Saskatchewan Health Authority]
and the procurement elements of that.
But I think it’s important to
understand, you know, really what the genesis of CIC was and where this came
from. And it’s really quite an interesting story, because, you know, this
really came out of a number of state-owned enterprises, Crown corporations,
which had developed here in this province going back to, you know, as early as
1910. I think SaskTel was brought together in around that time period.
SaskPower, you know, in the
late 1920s. 1929 I think is where we traced the history of SaskPower from. And
then obviously a proliferation of Crown corporations in the period from 1944 to
1950, which included a number of things like brick factories and shoe factories
and that sort of thing.
But you know, what was formed
to manage and make sure government direction was carried out across that Crown
sector was something called the government financial office. And what this was
was the institution through which the government’s Crown corporations would be
managed, with accountability through a minister into cabinet. And that
developed into the Crown Investments Corporation model as it evolved from the
government financial office into the late ’60s, early ’70s.
And that model really was
based on a vision of the GFO [government financial office] and then the CIC
having a direct reporting relationship through Crown boards to CIC through,
whether it was the secretary in the GFO and then to the president of CIC, the
job that Kent fills so ably, and through that mechanism by having
accountability both up towards cabinet but also back the other way to make sure
that the companies were undertaking government direction and aligning their
operations with government direction.
I mean this is going to be a
major focus in collaborating across Crowns, having the capacity at CIC to drive
these agendas through, you know, whether it be collaboration cost savings,
investment attraction, driving these policy priorities of government through
CIC into the Crown corporations. So collaboration’s a good example of it. And
I’ll maybe ask Kent to talk about some of the good work that’s been going on
there.
Kent
Campbell: —
Yeah, so for the collaboration initiative this year in particular we have eight
strategic initiative teams. And we mentioned the goal, the target is
$50 million in cost savings each year and then $1 billion in new
private sector investment. So the numbers referenced earlier, we are currently
forecasting $50.3 million in savings as of Q3 for the previous fiscal
year, ending ’24‑25, and then 1.33 billion in new private sector
investment.
You had asked about some of
the top cost savings areas that would contribute toward that. Maybe I’ll just
reference four. The first one was the establishment of a more centralized
system for line location requests between the Crowns and other agencies at
17.9 million. There’s a pole-sharing arrangement between SaskTel and
SaskPower, where SaskTel is increasingly using SaskPower poles rather than
burying lines.
We’ve expanded Crown
collaboration. We now call it collaboration because there’s now 36 Crowns —
administration, treasury board Crowns, government agencies — participating,
including the health sector, which has been huge. And so there’s one here from
the health sector I would like to highlight, which is vinyl surgical gloves,
where the Saskatchewan Health Authority, All Nations’ Healing, and Athabasca
Health joined 3sHealth [Health Shared Services Saskatchewan] in the procurement
of vinyl surgical gloves as a joint purchase. And just by doing that alone,
those agencies were able to save $4.4 million. So they got the same
products, but just by collaborating they were able to save the taxpayer
$4.4 million.
[21:15]
And then finally, one on
joint infrastructure between SaskPower and SaskEnergy, reducing costs when
installing services, of $2.4 million.
And certainly one of the
things that I’ve noted is, you know, you have these large government
organizations and everybody means to work well together, but until you actually
have a mechanism to sort of require reporting and encouraging that
participation, you’re not really optimizing it.
And I think one of the ones
that has really been most prominent for me hasn’t been on the cost-saving side
but has really been on that investment attraction side, and in part, given my
previous roles at TED [Trade and Export Development] and other economic
agencies. It is a real advantage for Saskatchewan to have our Crowns coming
together with our agencies like TED, like Energy and Resources, to attract
investment. It just doesn’t happen in other jurisdictions, and we hear that
from investors.
It’s a real advantage to be
able to have one point of contact, which we coordinate through TED. And then
Tim acts as the liaison with the CIC Crowns. We have a committee, and they’re
able to get really quick responses. One point of contact and it really makes
the investors feel welcome. And it’s unique. It shouldn’t be. You’d think any
smaller jurisdiction in particular should be able to do this, but it just
doesn’t happen.
And I know the minister has
some experiences on that as well he might want to share.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I would. And you know, Kent put that very, very well. We have really
viewed this as being an area of competitive advantage for our province as we
go, you know, working with potential investors, as we talk about Saskatchewan
around the world to both attract investment and to find new markets for our
commodities around the world.
We have a genuinely unique
advantage here in that anybody who is seeking to do business here and working
with government in the province has one phone call to make, and we will
coordinate across government to make sure that those potential investors or those
who are seeking to buy our commodities are going to be able to do that and
access the appropriate people.
This was really why Trade and
Export Development was set up in the first place. And Kent was the very first
deputy minister of Trade and Export Development as well. And we had set this
organization up in 2017 and it was based on a lot of experience. I mean, you
know, Kent’s had the misfortune of working beside me for a long time now.
Nearly 20 years we’ve been working together and, you know, working in economic
ministries through a great big chunk of that.
And I really identified some
of the challenges early on and some of the structural challenges that existed
for companies who were seeking to make investments and getting projects across
the line. And that really culminated in the plan that the Premier put forward
for the creation of the trade and export department ministry in his leadership
campaign. That was where the plan that he put forward . . . That was
the plan, and we executed on that shortly thereafter. We created the trade and
export department ministry, and the vision was that this would be the one-stop
shop for investment attraction.
We continued that. There
continued to be some challenges though. Even though we were coordinating
through a single point of contact, it was how do we get through these very,
very, you know, complicated on occasion servicing issues, permitting issues,
technical barriers? How do we actually cut through that? How do we work with
the Crowns? How do we work with SaskPower? How do you get a power connection?
How do you get a gas connection? All of these were real questions.
And you know, Kent has done a
remarkable job as president of CIC, and Tim has done a remarkable job as
vice-president and the point of contact between the Crown corporations,
interfacing back with Trade and Export Development. It’s resulted in literally billions
of dollars of investment, where companies are making decisions on location that
are . . . You know, it could be one or two points. I mean we’re
talking 1 or 2 per cent long term, you know, ROI [return on investment]
numbers. What makes the difference and tips the balance in a lot of cases on
these things is, you know, the single point of contact and your ability to
actually get a project across the line in a defined period of time.
So you know, we worked really
hard at that, and it has been done through hard work and collaboration across
the Crown sector but also with executive government. And it is a unique model
that exists in Canada.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Thank you for that response. I wonder if you could tell me what the budgeted
CIC revenue and expense numbers are for ’25‑26 and the forecast revenue,
expense numbers for CIC for 2024‑25?
Kent
Campbell: —
For the ’25‑26 CIC budget, we are anticipating dividend revenue — that’s
revenue coming in from the Crowns; that’s how we earn our money — at
276.22 million. Total operating expenses at CIC for ’25‑26 are
estimated to be 21.065 million.
We then have three what we
call public policy initiatives. One is our investment attraction infrastructure
program, our Indigenous programming, and our funding for coal communities.
Those total 9.629 million. So earnings from operations then — we take the
dividend revenue minus those expenses I mentioned — would be
245.526 million. After finance income, finance expense, that comes to
246.556 million less capital expenditures. And then our payments to the
GRF for ’25‑26, so our dividend payment to the GRF, that is estimated to
be $255 million for this year.
When you compare that to the
’24‑25 budget, we had anticipated revenues of 227.739 million. The
operating expenses were estimated to be 19.507 million. The public policy
initiatives were 5.416 million. Your earnings from operation were
estimated at 202.817 million. When you remove the finance income and
finance expense, your net earnings were, at budget, were projected to be
203.886 million less capital expense. And then our payment to the GRF,
$210 million in dividends to the GRF.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay, thank you. So also known as CIC dividends? Would that be sort of the same
thing, the payment to the GRF?
Kent Campbell:
— Correct, yes.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yes, okay. Just want to make sure I’m comparing the right numbers. It seems to
be in range with going back to 2017‑18, 2018‑19. Thank you for
those numbers. I’ll get back to my list of questions. What would be the budget
dividend by individual Crown corporation for ’25‑26?
Kent Campbell:
— Okay, so the dividend revenue for CIC, another way to phrase that is the
dividend that the Crowns pay to CIC. So projections for ’25‑26: SaskTel,
40.24 million; SaskEnergy, 14.875 million; SaskPower, zero dividend;
Lotteries and Gaming Saskatchewan, 181.111 million — I’m rounding to the
nearest 1,000 here — SaskWater, 3.004 million. SGI Canada would be
32 million. And then we’re projecting dividends from our investment in ISC
[Information Services Corporation of Saskatchewan], which is of course not a
Crown, at just under $5 million.
Erika Ritchie: — So
Lotteries and Gaming, 181 million you said, right. So that seems to be a
fairly significant increase over ’23‑24. Could you provide a little bit
of an explanation, what’s driving that?
Kent Campbell:
— Yes, I can. So the difference there really was, that was not a full year of
LGS operations. So I think that year there was only a three-quarter year worth
of earnings.
Erika
Ritchie: —
And then I notice for SaskEnergy also, sizable increase if I’m not mistaken.
You’ve got 114 you’re forecasting — did I hear you correctly? — compared to
more in the neighbourhood of 20 to 40 in past years.
Kent Campbell:
— Sorry, no, the forecasted dividend for SaskEnergy is 14.875 million.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay yeah. I’m glad I asked.
Kent Campbell:
— Just under 15 million, yes.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yeah, that makes more sense. Okay. Great, thank you.
Okay, so yeah, you mentioned
in that some earnings coming from the investment in ISC. ISC has been in the
news this past week, as I’m sure you’re aware. Could you tell me what the
government’s position is on the mini-tender that has come forward from Plantro
to purchase 14.9 per cent interest in ISC?
Kent Campbell:
— So ISC is a publicly traded company, and CIC is the largest single
shareholder in that corporation. We currently hold 29.3 per cent ownership
interest. And certainly we are aware of the tender offer by Plantro as well as
the response by the ISC board. And just very recently Plantro changed the terms
of their offer. We are waiting to hear a response from the ISC board, but we do
not have a position on that particular proposal.
[21:30]
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well I guess, yeah. I mean ISC was originally sold off, you know, it’s gone
sort to an initial IPO [initial public offering] about 10 years ago. And the
government retained, you know, a third ownership thereabouts and has three
board members on it.
But you know, I think there’s
been some speculation and concern over the implications of an outside firm
acquiring that sort of a shareholder interest in ISC. And I’d like to hear from
the minister on what he sees as the government’s position on the implications
if such a bid is successful, and what that will mean for the interests of the
province.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I would say that Kent, I think, put it well. I mean the member is aware, I
mean this is a publicly traded company. I’m not going to be making specific
comments with regard to proposed transactions or potential or hypothetical
offers or anything of this nature. I’m not going to be commenting on it. It’s
entirely inappropriate for me to do that.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well you know, I think that there is some concern there. ISC did put out a
statement as you mentioned. They characterized it as abusive and coercive.
Those are some pretty strong words, certainly backed up by, I can only imagine,
some valid concerns. And so you know, I think the concern from the people of
the province would go to what this could mean for jobs, or you know, cost of
services that are offered to customers here in the province when they have to
get their land title searches and so forth done.
I wondered if you could
perhaps comment on those concerns or implications.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Once again, like I’m not going to be commenting on any of the particulars. It’s
a publicly traded company. I’m not, as a minister, going to be commenting on
that. What I can say: there’s a long-term contract in place with ISC. There is
a legislative provision on head office. Those are going to continue in place,
but I am not going to comment on proposed market transactions.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Has the government made its appointments to the board for its three board
members, and who would those be?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
So thanks. No, I just had to clarify the particular legal framework under which
this happens and under which I can comment.
So there’s an order in
council that was passed, which I believe is posted publicly, that renominated
the three existing board members who had been serving as government
representatives quite recently, in the last couple of months. I think it’s been
public for some time now.
The actual formal appointment
of the board happens at the annual general meeting of the company, which will
be occurring in the next . . . Okay, it hasn’t happened yet but the
formal appointment will happen as a part of the AGM [annual general meeting],
so I don’t believe it’s happened yet. But we have resubmitted our candidates
who are those who already had been members of the board, and I think who we’ve
been satisfied with their performance.
Erika
Ritchie: —
And who would those three individuals be?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Sorry?
Erika
Ritchie: —
Could we please have the names of those three board members?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: — Sure.
Erika
Ritchie: —
And then maybe also a bit of an explanation on how they were selected for
appointment.
Kent Campbell:
— So the three members are Joel Teal, who has been on the board since the IPO
in July of 2013, and he is the Chair of the board currently. Doug Emsley, who
is the Vice-Chair, also on the board since the IPO in July of 2013. And then
the third is Amber Biemans. She was appointed to the board in 2022. Those are
our three appointees.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So it’s my understanding that no one entity can own more than 15 per cent of
the shares in ISC. The offer, the tender that Plantro has put forward is
looking to acquire just under that at 14.9, and there appears to be somewhat a
possibility that that may lead to a slate of board members being put forward by
Plantro to take a position on and through . . . gain control of ISC.
And to what ends it’s not clear.
But does it concern the
minister that there would be this sort of initiative coming forward from
somebody who has had a somewhat dubious past in terms of recent severances and
letting go from the company that he was a key owner and executive on?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
You know, I’ve made the comment, which is as far as I can go with regard to,
you know, a publicly traded company in which the government owns a position. I
can’t comment on these matters, and I’m not going to.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Is CIC budgeting to sell any of the ISC stocks that it owns in the current
year?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I’m not sure how many more times I can give the . . . I’m not able to
comment on ISC as the minister. I can’t comment. It’s a publicly traded
company. We have a material interest. I can’t comment on it.
Erika
Ritchie: —
What is the projected financial return from CIC AMI in 2025‑26, and could
you list for me the assets still held by CIC AMI?
Cindy Ogilvie:
— Cindy Ogilvie, senior vice-president and chief financial officer at CIC. So
earlier tonight Kent had answered the question about all of the Crowns’
earnings. In that listing he had provided, CIC AMI has projected earnings at
1.5 million for ’25‑26.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yes. Thank you very much. I wondered though if you could provide a list of the
assets still held by CIC AMI.
Cindy Ogilvie:
— So CIC AMI is in wind-down, and the assets that are left are very minor and
are all non-performing assets. So we have an investment in an entity called
CanPro Ingredients, Performance Plants Inc., Muskowekwan Resources Ltd.,
Townsgate Properties, and Windermere.
Erika
Ritchie: —
I just guess I’d like to understand that a little bit better. You indicated
that they’re non-performing assets so how is it that there’s been
. . . What would be the history of it, how these assets would be part
of the CIC’s portfolio?
Cindy
Ogilvie: —
They would go back — some of them go back decades — to previous entities that
would have existed over the years. Over the years these entities have been
wound down, and many of the assets have been divested of. But there are some
assets that are left that are non-performing, being that the entities aren’t
earning any earnings. Some of them are agricultural, ag-bio-type research
companies that are getting dollars invested in them from other investees, not
by CIC AMI, but we just continue to hold on to the shares because there’s no
market for them. We can’t necessarily sell them. There’s no value to them
anymore.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So at some point then presumably they would be dissolved in that case? Or what
would be . . . why would you continue to hold onto them?
Cindy
Ogilvie: —
The entities still exist. Yeah, I mean we could turn back the shares to the
entity itself for no value, or we just continue to hang onto them and see what
happens with the entities. If any of their research comes about, becomes
revenue-earning in the future, then maybe there would be something there to
recover.
Erika
Ritchie: —
I see. Okay. Okay, thank you. We talked earlier about the Auto Fund, and I’ve
got a few questions related to that. What is the projected operating position
of the Auto Fund before investment revenues in 2025‑26? And what was it
in ’24‑25?
Kent
Campbell: —
We don’t have that breakdown.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Could it then be provided in follow-up to the committee hearing or meeting?
Hon. Jeremy Harrison: — Well what I would suggest, if the
member wants to submit a written query on that, we would be happy to go through
the process.
[21:45]
Erika
Ritchie: —
I’m here today asking the question. I don’t quite see the purpose of submitting
questions that will then get punted for six months or
whatever the term. I would respectfully request that the minister’s officials
table for the committee’s viewing the investment revenues for ’25‑26 and
’24‑25, respectfully, please.
Sorry, just to clarify. I
know you had sort of a puzzled look on your face there. I’ll restate it. What
is the projected operating position of the Auto Fund before investment revenues
in ’25‑26 and ’24‑25? And I would ask for those to please be tabled
at a later date to the committee.
Okay, I did notice the
minister nodding to the Chair. I take that as acceptance of the request.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
What I would suggest, you know, the member has a number of options. We don’t
have the information here right now on any of that. I’m not sure if that’s
publicly available or not, but I’d encourage the member to avail herself of
those opportunities.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well that is precisely what I’m doing. I’m requesting that information in the
here and the now, and respectfully requesting that it be submitted as requested
at a later date. I don’t understand the issue.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
We don’t have it with us, Mr. Chair. We don’t have it right now.
Chair
Steele: — If the minister can’t
supply it right now, you’re saying you can’t supply it at a later date?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I’m not sure. I mean, yeah, I’m not making an undertaking that I can’t
commit to because I’m not sure. So we’ll take a look and see what we can do.
Chair
Steele: — Okay. We’ll move on.
Erika Ritchie: — All
right. So I know we canvassed earlier this evening the loss position or the
negative position of the Auto Fund. I don’t have the numbers right in front of
me, but it would appear that the Auto Fund is operating outside its financial
framework. I’d like to know what the province is intending to do to address
this issue.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I would reject the premise of the member’s question. Where
the Auto Fund was at as of March 31st of 2025 — so 10 days ago — was at a
minimum capital test of 125 per cent, which is within the long-term target. So
I don’t accept the premise of the question.
The other thing I would add
too with regard to the Auto Fund — and I talked about it a little bit earlier
here this evening — given the uncertainty in the market we’re seeing, yeah,
literal fluctuations every day. We’re not making long-term decisions with
regard to either the Auto Fund or other budgetary measures based on day-to-day
fluctuations in the market or oil price or any of these things. We’re not going
to do it, and I think frankly it’s highly irresponsible to suggest that we do.
So the fact is that the MCT,
minimum capital test threshold, we are within that parameter as of 10 days ago.
Erika Ritchie: — Does
the minister have plans to increase automobile insurance rates in the current
year?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
No decisions have been made with regard to any of those matters, and the fact
is that on the Auto Fund we are within the long-term target for where that fund
is at. You know, we’re going to monitor where things go through the course of
an entire year, whether that be, you know, 6‑, 9‑, 12‑months
period, but we’re not going to be making decisions based on daily or hourly
fluctuations in the market.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yeah, so of course no one would expect such a ridiculous reaction. But I am
curious to know what the decision-making process and the factors that would
come into consideration would be for such a determination.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I’ll say it again. The Auto Fund is within the long-term target right now,
and that’s, you know, going to be continuously monitored, as it always is. You
know, the Auto Fund had been significantly above the minimum capital test
point, and that enabled us to do some . . . you know, issue rebates
basically to customers of SGI through the Auto Fund. But I think the rate
reserve is nearly 800 million. Is that about where we’re at on
. . . That’s rate stabilization? Sorry, yeah, 720, we’re at the RSR
[rate stabilization reserve] right now.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Sorry, I didn’t quite understand that number. The reserve? Is that what you
called it? Yeah, and it’s currently sitting at 800 million? Am I
. . . I don’t know.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
720.
Erika Ritchie: — The
reserve is sitting at 720 million. Okay, thank you very much. Can you
provide me with information on the average per cent increase in the price of an
SGI property policy in Saskatchewan in ’24‑25 and what it’s projected to
be in ’25‑26?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah. Okay. So I mean this is a competitive market. SGI operates in a
competitive market and are making pricing decisions based on the competitive
market they’re operating in. I’m not giving direction on any of those things.
Think about it this way. With
SaskTel, you know, another government Crown agency, Crown corporation that
operates in a highly competitive market who are, you know, constantly making
adjustments to pricing, you’ll hear on the radio or see billboards about new
programs that are being rolled out. Government has no input into
. . . I can tell you I have no input. The political level has no
input into what those competitive decisions that these companies are making
are.
So the answer on that
particular question is, I don’t really have an answer because that’s up to SGI.
Erika
Ritchie: —
I don’t quite understand that answer. I’m just confused by it because
regardless of who makes the decision, it should be a number that you would have
access to, would it not?
And then I guess, like I
think don’t insurance adjusters usually get quotes? I would think that if you
worked in the industry you would have access to that kind of information.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I would say this. I mean SGI officials are not at estimates for a reason.
I mean these are CIC estimates, not SGI estimates, and SGI don’t have separate
estimates.
And it would be
. . . You know the question the member is asking me, just for folks
who are watching, I mean it’s the equivalent of asking, well what are you going
to do for cell phone plans next week? Well I’m not directly engaged in coming
up with new pricing models for, you know, iPhone 16s that SaskTel is selling or
how they’re going to bundle that package with a rate plan.
Kent
Campbell: —
Maybe I could just add to that too. I think one of the differences is when it
comes to SaskTel and SGI Canada in terms of property and casualty, the reason
that’s more delegated is it’s a competitive market, as the minister mentioned.
So when it comes to prop and casualty insurance, customers have a choice. They
don’t need to use SGI. They do for their basic auto insurance through the Auto
Fund, and that’s why that process goes through the rate review panel. But when
it comes to your home insurance, you have choices in terms of who you buy your
insurance from.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Can you provide me with the budgeted financial position for the SGI reinsurance
program in 2025‑26 and the forecast financial position for the SGI
reinsurance program in ’24‑25?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
So I would kind of say this, and this was also pointed out last evening by the
CEO of SaskTel in estimates. You know, for SGI and SaskTel, who operate in
competitive environments, I mean a number of the questions that could be asked
have implications, that we are not going to disclose competitive information
that would put the companies at a disadvantage. We’re just not going to do
that.
[22:00]
So also kind of with regard
to specific questions with regard to the business of SGI, I mean we don’t have
that with us. We’re here as Crown Investments Corporation, not here as SGI. And
to reiterate, there’s a reason why SGI doesn’t have separate estimates, which I
won’t get into, but there is a reason why SGI is not here for separate
estimates. So asking for very specific information, some of which would be
competitive information about the company, we’re not in the position to provide
and we won’t provide.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well I think that’s unfortunate. You know, SGI is another Crown, and so there’s
an issue of transparency to the public in general, but then also my role in
terms of ensuring accountability. And you know, those numbers are important for
ensuring that. And I don’t know if there is some way that they can be provided,
maybe through written questions, or at least, you know, in a ballpark.
Because I think the concern
is that with increasing claims and payments, ensuring that the fund is within
that operating range that we were talking about before. Looking to see if it’s
on-trend to stay within a reasonable range or not is really what the questions
are driving at. And without having the responses to what are, I think, very
reasonable questions and ones in the public interest, it’s difficult for us to
make those determinations and do our job from this end.
But anyways, I did want to
ask a specific question about the appeal advisor program, which operates within
SGI. And what’s forecasted for ’24‑25 and budgeted for ’25‑26?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I think, Mr. Chair, this would be, you know, an answer that probably would
have been replicated in earlier responses with regard to SGI. We’re here as
Crown Investments Corporation, not as SGI. We don’t have the information that
is here with regard to highly specific questions about particular parts of
SGI’s business, so we can’t respond to that.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well then would it be possible for the minister and his officials to table the
response to this question at a reasonable later date?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I would give an answer similar to what I gave earlier. We don’t have the
information in front of us. I’m not going to provide an undertaking to give
information that we are not sure where it is or who has it or if it exists in
the context of the question being asked. And further to that, I am not going to
commit to providing information that would be competitively challenging for the
company to provide. And I don’t know for sure whether it would be or not, but
I’m not going to provide an undertaking that I know I can’t deliver on.
Chair
Steele: — Okay, hearing from the
minister that he doesn’t have the information or he’s not going to, made the
decision, can we move on with the questioning then? He’s basically quoted that
he’s not going to respond.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Right. Sure. Well I believe that the minister is also the Minister Responsible
for SGI, so could he not take that query back and pursue a response?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well I mean, this is what I had said earlier, Mr. Chair. I can’t provide an
undertaking that I have no certainty that I can deliver on, and I say that in a
professional capacity as a lawyer. I’m not going to provide the undertaking. We
will take a look and we will make efforts, but I can’t provide an undertaking.
Chair
Steele: — Okay, being that the
minister said he would take a look and give it a . . . Is that
satisfactory? Can we move forward with the questioning? Withdrawal on the one
question?
Erika
Ritchie: —
Sure, yeah. If the minister is committing to taking a look and getting back to
the committee, then I’m satisfied with that. And I’ll look forward to a
response being tabled to the committee.
Chair
Steele: — Okay. Minister, you’re
good? We’ll move forward.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I just want to be very clear, Mr. Chair. I’m not committing to tabling a
response because I’m not giving an undertaking to do it because I don’t know
that I can provide that undertaking.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well I did have some other related questions. I’m a little bit confused about
why questions on SGI are not germane to this conversation. It is true that
there isn’t a specific committee that . . . or committee time that’s
been allowed for estimates on SGI, and I honestly don’t know the reasons why
that is. But you know, CIC as a holding company and SGI as one of those
companies of which, it appears, that the Minister of CIC is also responsible
for, it would be reasonable for me to be asking just a couple of questions on a
couple of matters related to the budget estimates, specifically with respect to
the appeal advisor program and the number of appeals that it receives in a year
and the number that are discharged by that program in the year, you know, what
the backlog is.
Certainly I’ve been hearing
from constituents some concerns with the backlog on that program and the
inability for timely resolutions of issues that have come forward. And I’m
hoping maybe that the minister can either provide some details around that program,
or if not tonight then commit to following up and bringing that information
back to the committee.
Chair
Steele: —
I think what I’m hearing, the minister has offered to dig into the file,
possibly come up with some, possibly answers. If you’re not satisfied with
that, I guess he’s committed. Can we move on with the questions in committee
tonight? Is that satisfactory to do that? He’s going to attempt to.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I
sort of provided a little bit of context, you know, in terms of the question
and the estimates for that ministry.
But
it looks like we’ve got about another 20 minutes or so, and I did want to ask
about the status of the SMR program that CIC is overseeing in conjunction with
SaskPower. I did note, last year in estimates where there were a number of
updates provided in terms of the nature of the work that historically has been
happening.
And so really I’m just interested, in
the interests of time this evening, in an update in terms of the work that
happened in the last fiscal year and projections for the year that we’re
entering into.
I did note also in the record
that there were some thoughts towards providing publicly available summaries of
that work. I honestly apologize; I couldn’t find it in the annual report, but I
might have been looking in the wrong place though. If you want to direct me to
where some of that information is provided, that would also be appreciated.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
All right. No, I appreciate the question. So I’m going to give a bit of an
introduction, but then David Brock is going to, you know, provide probably a
bit more granular detail on a lot of these matters.
But I would say this: the
government’s objective is to get to nuclear. And I’ve talked about that, I
think, in the opening remarks. I talked about that in estimates yesterday, and
I’ve talked about that publicly a great deal over the last number of months.
Our objective is to get to nuclear.
And you know, there are
significant questions about how and what that time frame is going to look like,
not based on any lack of willingness on this side to get there, but on a lot of
the development time frames for the particular SMR that David can speak to. But
also, I mean, the reality with nuclear is that these things often take longer
than we hope and they often cost more than we hope.
We are still working very
closely with OPG [Ontario Power Generation], who are the leads on the BWRX
design. We’re going to hopefully have class 3 engineering estimates from OPG in
the relatively near future. We were hoping that we would have had them already,
and we were hoping we would have had them for some time, but that has been
delayed and pushed out. So you know, a lot of the challenges isn’t because of
SaskPower or CIC, it’s that our partner on the project, which is OPG, is kind
of . . . It’s taken longer than they would have hoped as well.
So we don’t have that pricing
information. But from a policy direction and macro standpoint, the government
wants to get to nuclear power development. We think it really fits within the
overall policy direction that we want to take for power generation and
distribution, transmission, meaning we are looking for as much energy and power
production security as we can possibly generate here in Saskatchewan that we’re
not dependent on outside sources for.
And you know, being able to
plan in the long term and time out to make sure that we have the workforce and
labour market capacity that we need in order to actually implement a lot of
these things, in addition to working back through from power production to
mining, what can we fill in the middle to have that value-added occur here?
So that is all part of that
big picture that we’re working through right now with the intention to getting
to nuclear. How do we bridge there? I talked about that extensively yesterday
with regard to SaskPower estimates. But specifically on nuclear, David, take it
away.
David Brock:
— Great. David Brock, vice-president, energy security. Through you, Mr. Chair,
thank you to the member for the question.
I want to start by building
on the minister’s fundamental comment in his preface, and that is that so much
of the work that we’re doing on nuclear is core to the long-term provincial
interests on energy security. And the minister’s comments about bridging from
our current diversity of supply to make sure that we’re through to a secure
energy future that also is powering the significant industrial interests in the
province and are leading exports internationally, as well as obviously secure,
reliable, and affordable power for our households and businesses that all of us
rely on.
In terms specific to the work
of the Crown Investments Corporation on nuclear, I’ll cover off on five areas
and I’ll touch on each of them briefly. Our responsibilities are for supply
chain development, workforce development, investment attraction as it relates
to nuclear, our relationship with the federal and provincial governments, as
well as the overall oversight in governance, which is consistent with the
long-standing mandate of the Crown Investments Corporation, as the minister
illustrated in a previous response.
Overarching all that is to
make sure that there is coordination across the provincial government on what
we’re doing in nuclear. And so primary to that I’d say is our ongoing
relationship with SaskPower and with the pursuit of their grid scale, BWRX‑300,
invented by GE Hitachi, as well as the work by the Saskatchewan Research
Council and the work they’re doing on microreactors, specifically the
Westinghouse eVinci, but other prospective microreactor technologies that are
available to them globally.
[22:15]
That work is important, of
course, because as Saskatchewan is seen as a so-called new nuclear
jurisdiction, as the minister mentioned, we are by no means new to nuclear. And
the work of companies such as Cameco and Orano, the research that has happened
at our post-secondary institutions as well as a number of vendors in the supply
chain that kind of operate below the radar but do very significant work and
build on the province’s expertise in welding, machining, manufacturing is a big
part of that.
So maybe I can start there
and talk about the work that we’ve done, particularly on supply chain
investment. We’ve just completed a two-year investment in a Ready4SMR program
led by the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association, SIMSA, with
them having a national partner as well as a First Nations partner here in the
province.
And that has enabled us to
put on a number of events across the province over the past two years in places
such as Regina, Saskatoon, Estevan, Moose Jaw, Whitecap First Nation to make
sure that the potential supply chain in the province — not just for projects by
SaskPower or by Saskatchewan Research Council but also nationally in Ontario,
New Brunswick, or globally — Saskatchewan can be feeding that supply chain.
And I think a recent
announcement by Westinghouse, and that they had signed MOUs [memorandum of
understanding] with six specific businesses here in Saskatchewan to feed their
supply chain — even though they’re not currently planning on building one of
their reactors in Saskatchewan — shows the significant advancements that we’ve
made in the development of our supply chain.
We also have a nuclear supply
chain working group that is a public-private collaboration, and again I think
speaks to the considerable efforts that companies such as Graham Construction
are starting to make towards becoming nuclear accredited so that they can
participate and feed in the supply chain in Saskatchewan, as well, as I said,
nationally and globally.
We have another 28 companies
in the province that are Saskatchewan-based firms that have expressed interest
and are working towards getting their nuclear accreditation. A number of these
companies are well known to Saskatchewan residents. To name just a few: Bird
Construction, Flyer Electric, I mentioned Graham Construction already, JNE
Welding, March Consulting, and Venables Machine Works.
So that’s only half a dozen
of the 28 or so that are currently working towards nuclear accreditation. This
is not a minor undertaking. This is at least a 12‑ to 24‑month
endeavour that can cost up to an investment of anywhere from 500,000 to
$2 million. So credit to these companies that are actually starting to
take the risk in getting the accreditation they need and start to model their
business plans in order to participate in what is clearly a burgeoning
industry, not just in this country but internationally as we’ve seen with now
34 countries pledging to triple nuclear power globally, and financial
institutions such as Bank of America, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Societe
Generale, and others wanting to pledge their financial investments in the
nuclear sector as well. So that’s on supply chain development.
On workforce development,
we’ve done specific work just for Saskatchewan and particularly had strong
partnerships with our post-secondary institutions, our trades training
institutes. Strong interest from labour, including IBEW [International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers], our regional colleges, all of whom want to
be in on training workers not only for this province but for developments that
they’re seeing potentially in Alberta, as well as obviously the ongoing work in
Ontario and the long-standing nuclear developments in places like New
Brunswick.
And now as they’re seeing
Canada investing in places like Poland, Romania, and our relationships with the
United Kingdom and France, there’s a real growing opportunity also for labour
in this province to contribute not only to the growth here in Saskatchewan,
this industry, but globally as well.
CIC is also contributing to a
national workforce study where we’ve provided leadership. We’re partnering with
the province of New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, Natural Resources Canada, as
well as the Canadian Nuclear Association to look at a national study, because
the demands that we will need, particularly in trades training, are not just
confined to Saskatchewan but certainly to the whole country.
That work came about as a
direct result of leadership we’ve provided where I have served as Co-Chair of
the national nuclear leadership table for two years with the deputy minister of
Natural Resources Canada. And we’ve looked at very practical projects come out
of that work and collaboration that we’ve had with other provinces and with
interested parties from across the country. So a lot of significant work being
done on supply chain and workforce development.
On investment attraction, we
see a number of areas in the future where we think there are prospects in
things like waste management from SMRs, build-out of transportation facilities.
We already have some expertise in the province in those areas. Considerable
potential, as I mentioned, in strengths we already have as a result of our
mining and oil and gas industries and things like machining and manufacturing.
A specific outgrowth of that has been the memorandum of understanding that was
signed by a previous minister, Minister Duncan, and the current Minister of
Affordability and Utilities in Alberta, Minister Neudorf. So Saskatchewan and
Alberta are also working together.
We’re helping Alberta think
through if they’re going to become a nuclear jurisdiction as well, what we’ve
learned in Saskatchewan and how they can benefit from that, as well as the
potential for things like industrial decarbonization or grid re-enhancement,
which nuclear can certainly play a part in, particularly as we’re thinking in
the medium to long term, at least in terms of the power sector, so kind of out
to the 2040s for the potential for things like large nuclear.
I’ll close off on the last
two areas then. In terms of federal-provincial relations, you’ll appreciate
that this is a particular area of ongoing work. The minister mentioned in
response to an earlier question the Future Electricity Fund. And I do think it’s
important. CIC did negotiate the return of what was initially $496 million
back to the province, which is of our carbon tax money. That has now increased
to 538 million that we’ve negotiated by moving money from another fund
that was residual funds that we were able to move into that Future Electricity
Fund, which will again go directly back into the electricity system in this
province.
The reason why I make mention
of that, Mr. Chair, is because of an announcement by the federal Minister of
Natural Resources Canada on only March the 5th — so just six weeks or so ago —
of $80 million being invested into this province. I think it’s important
to distinguish that those are funds that are carbon tax dollars being returned
to the province. That’s not net new money that’s coming into the province.
There have been some areas through federal funding where we’ve certainly
pursued to make sure that those dollars are coming into this province. But
that’s an example of reannouncements of carbon tax dollars that are coming back
that is really just money that have been paid by the residents of Saskatchewan
coming back to Saskatchewan.
I’ll close on oversight and
governance. I believe the minister made mention in his role last night as the
Minister of SaskPower about the creation of SaskNuclear, a subsidiary that’s
certainly necessary to help move SaskPower through the regulatory process with
the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. But that’s really a starting point for
nuclear in the Crown sector.
So we’re doing important work
to understand in the medium and long term, thinking through, you know, a
variety of conditions and variables: the number of SMRs, whether or not we’re
eventually bringing on large nuclear, the role of microreactors, what the
financing arrangements may be like, what might be the options for the
structuring of nuclear in the province.
So the subsidiary Crown
nuclear most certainly makes sense for now and will for some time as SaskPower
moves through the initial stages of licensing under the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission] as the proponent. But we want to start doing that thinking
now to prepare for the medium and long term.
So we’re starting to think
now about what the oversight role for CIC — and through us the provincial
government — will need to be as it relates to nuclear energy so that we’re
prepared to make sure that the Chair of the CIC board and the provincial government
as a whole are asking the right questions and, most importantly, getting the
right answers as we continue our oversight of the Crown sector and development
of nuclear power specifically. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Maybe I’ll just add . . . And David said it much, much better than I,
and David’s done a great job in leading our team in this space. You know, we
are working right now. I mean this is not just some idea in the future. We’re
going through this right now.
And SaskNuclear was a part of
that, going through the regulatory process. SRC [Saskatchewan Research Council]
has a nuclear subsidiary as well that is concurrently going through the
regulatory processes, which is why you had the subsidiary set up. And frankly
it’s why we have some amendments or some new statutory provisions in front of
the House right now actually as well. Because we are, you know, concurrently
with some of the actual technical work that’s going on being led by OPG on the
BWRX project, but we’re concurrently going through the regulatory process with
that as well which is, you know, to say that it’s a challenge . . .
It is a challenge and it’s a lengthy process.
I would say that CNSC has
made strides, and I think both SaskNuclear and SRC Nuclear would speak to some
of the advances that CNSC have made through their regulatory process to do a
number of these things at the same time rather than consecutively as far as
that.
This has been a topic of
discussion as well. It hasn’t been a top-fold, front-page discussion in the
national election campaign, but one of the commitments that was made by the
Conservative Party was to truncate and shrink the regulatory process time for
the deployment of whether it be small-scale SMR nuclear, micro nuclear, or
large-scale nuclear.
And I really think that’s
going to be a vital conversation as we go forward, because I think you’re going
to see other jurisdictions within Canada, and you’re seeing it around the
world. I mean you really are. It’s amazing the amount not just of interest but
commitment from national governments and national utilities that are owned by
governments to deploy this technology around the world which is going to create
incredible opportunities here in Saskatchewan, which is why we are doing all of
this work that we are on workforce and supply chain development. Because this
is an amazing opportunity that we have here in Saskatchewan.
It was an opportunity frankly
that probably existed at some level 30 years ago, and we didn’t take advantage
of it. In fact that opportunity was pushed outside of the province and now
we’re having to kind of get back to the point where we can have some of these
chances again. But this is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we have
in front of us to build out the labour market as far as the nuclear supply
chain, but all of the elements that go along with that as well given our really
almost unique position as a producer and miner of fuel.
So we’re going to be working
through all of this. We really are keeping an open mind about what that future
would look like, and you know, we’re going to be taking a hard look at all of
these options. SMR really are a very good one, so we’re working through this
very diligently, but we are keeping an open mind about what some of the other
options might look like, including large-scale nuclear which could be a part of
that mix as well.
Working closely with our
partners, Alberta; David really at the national level leading on this space as
well. But we’re really excited about it. This is something that I think
provides enormous opportunities for Saskatchewan.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Well it looks like I have time for one more question.
Chair
Steele: — Yes, we can go to 10:32
because we started a little bit later.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Okay. So just looking for some clarification and maybe I’ll first of all just
say thank you to the officials for that overview as requested. Again just going
back, I see that the Small Modular Reactor Investment Fund had budgeted an
opening balance for ’25‑26 of 584.4, in-year contributions of 285.1, and
closing balance of 869.5 for total asset of the investment fund of 869.5. So
again given the changes to the output-based performance system, will there be
an impact on that budget estimate?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Yeah I mean, the short answer is we’re not going to be collecting carbon tax
from people’s SaskPower bill, so no, we’re not going to be adding that carbon
tax dollar to the small modular reactor fund. What I can say though is if we
make the final determination to go in this direction, we’re going to be, you
know, obviously making these financial decisions not lightly. And they will
likely not be made in the immediate future either.
[22:30]
And I would say as well, we
need federal partnership in this space. We have asked the federal government to
be a 75 per cent funding partner on SMRs. We’re hopeful that that’s going to go
forward.
I’ve actually, frankly I’ve
been pretty encouraged by the federal commitments in some of this space, and
I’m hopeful that, you know, whoever is to form government after April 28th,
that we’re going to see a continued commitment from the national government.
And not just a commitment as far as being, you know, verbally supportive. We
need the federal government to be there very significantly with dollars.
And you know, we haven’t had
that concrete commitment that has been made, but we are going to continue to
pursue that very assertively because that is a big part of what that nuclear
future has to look like as well.
Erika
Ritchie: —
Just for clarity, so the in-year contribution that’s listed at 285.1, where
will that come from?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
I think we’ve talked about OBPS. I’m not going to add anything more. I think
I’ve been pretty clear on all that, Mr. Chair.
Erika
Ritchie: —
It’s a very basic question. I’m seeking clarity. I don’t know what makes up the
in-year contribution amount that’s listed in that budget line of 285.1.
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Well you know, as far as funding a future nuclear reactor, whether it be an SMR
or large-scale nuclear, we’ve been clear that we’re going to have a provincial
component of that funding. But we also expect the federal government to play a
significant funding role in that up to . . . and we put the number of
75 per cent publicly out there. That’s where we need the federal government to
be as a funding partner in this, Mr. Chair, and I’m hopeful that they will be.
Erika
Ritchie: —
So are you suggesting that 75 per cent of that amount, 285.1 million, is
coming from the federal . . . you’re hoping it comes from the federal
government?
Chair
Steele: — Having reached our
agreed-upon time for the consideration of business today, we’ll adjourn
considerations of these estimates. Any closing comments, Minister?
Hon.
Jeremy Harrison: —
Very briefly. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to committee members; appreciate it.
And really I just want to thank the team at CIC, through Kent to our entire
team. We have a great team at Crown Investments Corporation that have dedicated
and committed themselves to serving the people of this province, and I
genuinely, sincerely appreciate working with them every day.
Chair
Steele: — Thank you. Any comments
from the opposition?
Erika
Ritchie: —
Yes, I want to thank the Chair for chairing the meeting this evening. I want to
thank the minister and his officials for making themselves available for our
questions here this evening. I want to thank Hansard and all of the audiovisual
supports, Clerks’ table as well for being here late again into another evening
and another early morning tomorrow. Always appreciate your steadfast support
for these committee proceedings. Thank you.
Chair
Steele: — Being that we exceeded
the allotted time of 10:30, it’s my job as the Chair to adjourn the meeting for
this evening. Thank you. This committee stands adjourned to the call of the
Chair, I guess.
[The committee adjourned at
22:34.]
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