SASKATOON — Among all the Crown corporations releasing annual reports at a news conference Tuesday in Saskatoon, it was SaskPower that drew the most attention.
Its moves toward nuclear, the financial impact of the removal of the carbon tax from bills, and the Crown corporation’s capital activities all made SaskPower the focus of attention at the news conference.
But the biggest media attention was on the multi-million-dollar net loss on the books for SaskPower for the year.
SaskPower reported a $114-million net loss in 2025-26 after $76 million in net income in 2024-25, a change of $190 million. Long-term debt also rose to $9.697 billion, up $1.229 billion, with the per cent debt ratio up to 78.9 per cent.
The $114-million net loss is being attributed to the move to remove the industrial carbon tax from SaskPower bills in 2025. Another item that drew attention in the annual reports was from Crown Investments Corporation, which provided an affordability grant of $187 million to SaskPower to offset the removal of the carbon tax from bills.
The CIC dividend to the province also went down to $68 million, compared with the $240-million dividend a year earlier.
The overall numbers drew scorn from NDP SaskPower critic Aleana Young, who pointed out afterwards to reporters that without that $187-million affordability grant from the CIC, SaskPower had run a $301-million gross loss.
In a statement, the NDP accused the Sask. Party of "now directly subsidizing the historic losses and mismanagement through other Crown profits."
But Harrison made no apologies for the affordability grant to SaskPower, or for the decision to remove the carbon tax from power bills. He pointed to Ontario as an example of another province that provided an $8-billion affordability grant to cover increases in its electricity system.
“We made the decision last year that we would provide support for affordability,” Harrison said.
“This is what we hear, I hear in Meadow Lake, as being the number one concern is affordability. We're committed to addressing that and making investments through our Crown corporations to keep life as affordable as possible for people here in this province. And I think we've been quite successful in that. We have the second lowest utility bundle in the entire country. Really a testament to the work that the folks up here do every day in keeping affordability and reliability when it comes to a number of the Crowns top of mind.”
Another focus at the news conference was SaskPower’s capital investment, with a large capital spend planned over the next several years of upwards of $10 billion.
Harrison did acknowledge some of SaskPower’s capital priorities, including connecting both the northern and southern power grids between Island Falls and E.B. Campbell Power Station on the east side, and then going north on a transmission upgrade up the Highway 155 corridor.
But Harrison pointed to “enormous demands” on power, something being seen across North America.
“For a very long time, we had a highly predictable growth demand projection that bore itself out as being accurate across time. What we are seeing is really a remarkable increase in demand and load growth on the power system. These are questions utilities across North America are having to answer directly right now.
“I would say that you see very, very large rate increases in jurisdictions across North America. I think if you look further afield, you would see the same phenomenon.”
Harrison said Saskatchewan was “really quite unique” in being able to remove the industrial carbon price from customers' bills.
“There was not another power utility in the country that was in a position to do that. In fact, you were looking at scenarios like Ontario, where there were 29 per cent rate increase applications.”
Harrison also acknowledged enormous cost pressures increasing across the supply chain for new generation assets.
“A facility that was going to be about $1.7 billion at Aspen cost $800 million just a handful of years ago. If we were to build it again today, we think about $2.4 billion would probably be an accurate estimate for that exact same facility … It's a reality that is being faced by utilities.”
Harrison said they are going to “continue to make these investments into SaskPower,” pointing to new investments and projects coming into the province. He noted Saskatchewan has the ability to allocate power to these new projects.
“The fact we have $60 billion of new investment going into this province, it's only because we have the power to allocate to do this. There would be a lot of jurisdictions that are very envious of the position that we are in right now as a utility and being able to allocate power for new investment …
"If you're looking at a new mine site, whether it be uranium mine, potash mine, these are facilities that use tens, if not a hundred or more megawatts of power. We are very fortunate to be able to actually allocate power to these new investments.”
