ISHMAEL N. DARO
Editor-in-Chief
Lingenfelter, Prebble and several other Saskatoon candidates came to Browsers on the U of S campus to introduce the Renewable Energy Act, a proposal that would boost renewable energy production to provide half of the province’s power by 2025. Currently, renewables only comprise 20 per cent of the province’s energy production.
“We don’t want Saskatchewan lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to renewable energy,” said Prebble, who holds a masters degree in sustainable environmental management. He was previously a member of the legislative assembly but did not run in 2007, when the seat went to the Saskatchewan Party’s Rob Norris, current minister for advanced education.
The second environmental policy unveiled today is increased municipal recycling funding: a $20 million boost over four years.
Lingenfelter added that an NDP government would be opposed to nuclear energy or storing nuclear waste materials in the province, although uranium mining would continue.
Asked how much the party’s environmental policies would cost, the NDP leader said all the numbers would be in the party platform, which has yet to be released. The Sask. Party has not released its platform either.
Media were notified of the event yesterday but it was not otherwise publicized. The few students who were at Browsers at the time were mostly there coincidentally.
“I’m not really paying attention,” said one student while Lingenfelter was speaking in the background.
“I like the pamphlets though,” she added.
An earlier version of this post stated that Peter Prebble lost his seat in 2007, whereas he was not actually up for election. Rob Norris defeated another NDP candidate, Andrew Mason, to win the Saskatoon-Greystone seat.
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photo: Ishmael N. Daro/The Sheaf