Somewhere in the Saskatchewan legislative building you might hear Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler spilling out from under a closed office door. The Saskatchewan Party government spent the first part of 2025 cancelling its climate plan and gambling that the federal government would let them get away with it.

The Conservatives looked poised to flush the Liberals out of Ottawa. Yet, somehow, Prime Minister Mark Carney came up with a full house (almost) and the Liberals remain in power.

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Premier Moe is still acting like he holds all the cards. He has now made a list of demands for the newly elected prime minister. Included on that list are demands to cancel most of Canada’s climate policies. Many of these climate policies were also Saskatchewan Party policies until this year.

In January, Minister Jeremy Harrison announced that SaskPower would look at running coal plants past 2030. This move was announced in spite of the 2012 coal-fired regulations put in place by Harrison’s former political party, the Stephen Harper Conservatives.

With the Poilievre Conservatives leading in the polls, Harrison was gambling that a move to keep burning the province’s dirtiest fuel would be given a stamp of approval when the Conservatives won the federal election. Then the Conservatives went bust.

Phasing out coal was also a central part of Saskatchewan’s Prairie Resilience plan and would cut SaskPower’s pollution levels nearly in half. Keeping coal alive was never on the table when SaskPower consulted the public about its future supply plan.

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Instead, SaskPower had been working to achieve 50 per cent renewable capacity by 2030 and a net-zero electricity sector by 2050. This path would have put SaskPower on a trajectory very close to what is required by the Clean Electricity Regulations.

Rather than gambling that Canada isn’t serious about cleaning up electricity, why not work to secure federal funding to make sure rates are kept affordable as we reduce pollution?

We could also ask for federal dollars to ensure that anyone working in coal has free training and generous income supports until they find a new job. This could also help lessen our provincial labour force shortage.

In March, Premier Moe announced that the province would eliminate its own climate plan for big polluters in the province. Lost in Premier Moe’s announcement was the fact that Saskatchewan had proudly created this industrial pollution reduction plan.

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The provincial “output-based performance standard” (OBPS) was a key part of the Saskatchewan Party’s “made-in-Saskatchewan” Prairie Resilience climate plan. The OBPS “carbon levy” was estimated to reduce pollution by 1 million tonnes per year.

When Prairie Resilience was released, former minister of environment Dustin Duncan said, “We have a plan on our heavy emitters. Our plan will not impact the economy. It will actually reduce emissions.”

Premier Moe also stated that the plan was endorsed by Crescent Point Energy, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Mosaic, Federated Co-operatives and the Regina Chamber of Commerce.

It looks like the Saskatchewan Party is gambling that the people of Saskatchewan have forgotten about the government’s own climate promises.

We have not solved climate change yet. The fires burning throughout our forests are a reminder that the world is getting hotter. The smoke in our cities is a reminder that a hotter world harms our health and economy. If we fail to reduce pollution, we roll the dice with our kids’ future.

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That’s not a gamble any of us should be willing to take.

Let’s hope that Premier Moe’s call for an end to Canadian climate policy is an opening bluff in a negotiation with the federal government. There are plenty of areas where Saskatchewan and Canada can reach common ground, including making it easier to build important projects.

On climate, we need to hope Premier Moe listens to the great Kenny Rogers and knows when to fold ‘em.

Brett Dolter is an associate professor in the University of Regina’s Department of Economics.

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