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Solar installation companies haven’t minced words in spelling out just how bad this decision is for their business. “This is the worst-case scenario for people that want to go solar in Saskatchewan,” said Miguel Catellier, CEO of Tru Green Energy. Bradyn Parisian, founder and CEO of Mo’ Solar, fears that solar in Saskatchewan “just simply will not survive without that one-to-one credit.”

Environment Minister Dustin Duncan claims that only well-off customers could access the net metering program — and he’s partially right. People who have seen their power bills go up more than 50 per cent over the last decade shouldn’t be asked to pay even more for their power.

But the solution isn’t to replace a flawed program with one that’s even worse. It’s to introduce a program that works.

Saskatchewan New Democrats have proposed just such a plan. It’s called Renew Saskatchewan, and it’s a plan to tackle climate change, reduce our power bills, create new jobs and increase our supply of clean energy.

With Renew Saskatchewan, people could have their home, farm, business or town hall assessed and receive recommendations to improve efficiency or produce power. This could include new windows, a high-efficiency furnace, credits in a wind farm or solar panels on their roof. Along with that assessment would be an estimate of the time it would take to pay off those improvements out of the energy savings produced.

Then — and this is the key part, the feature that gets rid of the cost barrier and makes this an opportunity for everyone — the program would cover the cost of the installation or retrofit, with that cost to be repaid over time on power or gas bills. People would be paying lower bills right away, and in time those bills would fall to next to nothing, or they could even be making money as they sell power back to the grid.

And as a result, we’d see thousands more people like Brenden working at new jobs in installation, manufacturing and maintenance.

Saskatchewan could be leading the way in the transition to clean energy, instead of pulling the plug on what was a vibrant, growing industry. Will this government listen to entrepreneurs like Brenden, or will it be lights out for solar in Canada’s sunniest province?

Ryan Meili is the Leader of the Official Opposition Saskatchewan New Democratic Party.