Resource
and
Energy
Sovereignty

The Problem

Saskatchewan is not taking advantage of the resources available to it.

The Promise

The NCP will capture the future of the resource sector, ensuring the benefits go to the people, and will modernize power grids and power generation to meet the needs of the 21st Century.

The Plan

The NCP will introduce The Saskatchewan Natural Resources Sovereignty Act and amendments to the Power Corporation Act. Together, these measures will ensure Saskatchewan's resources and power are developed and extracted by the people and for the people.

The Act will mandate that all new major or newly expanded resource projects must operate under a trilateral co-ownership model. Ownership will be divided equally between the Provincial Crown, the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust, and the private operating partner, with each holding a 33 1/3% working interest.

• 33 1/3% of the project shall be owned by the Government of Saskatchewan, and it will have a veto over the project.
• 33 1/3% of the project shall be owned by the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust, and it will have a veto over the project.
• 33 1/3% of the project shall be owned by the company, and it will not have a veto over the project.

To achieve this structure, the Province will reserve the right to acquire a 66 2/3% working interest, purchased at audited cost to date, with one-half of that acquired interest immediately transferred at audited cost to the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust.

The Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust will hold the Indigenous ownership share in projects operating under the trilateral model.

The Trust will be established through a governance framework co-developed with First Nations governments, Métis governments, and other relevant Indigenous governing bodies in Saskatchewan, consistent with the Consent Protocol and the Saskatchewan UNDRIP Implementation Act.

The Province will not unilaterally determine who is entitled to participate in the Trust or how the Trust is governed. The Province will facilitate a nation-to-nation process with timelines and neutral facilitators to ensure that the nations themselves can decide what is best.

That framework will determine membership, representation, voting rules, revenue allocation, and the process for identifying which Indigenous governing body or bodies are most directly connected to a given project by treaty, territory, community connection, or other recognized Indigenous interest.

As a general rule, the Trust will provide for broad Indigenous participation at the provincial level, while ensuring that the Indigenous nations, governments, and communities most directly affected by or connected to a specific project have the strongest role in decisions, consent, and benefit sharing related to that project.

The Province will provide capacity funding to support the creation of the Trust, which will take substantive work and conversation, but final authority over its governance structure will rest with the participating Indigenous governments and governing bodies themselves. The Province will not control the wealth or power of the Indigenous Peoples of Saskatchewan beyond making the initial offer of equal 33 1/3% equity, or a 50 / 50 public-Indigenous split should corporations refuse their share.

• See Policy 04 - Reconciliation for more.

Each project must also maintain a jointly governed maintenance, reclamation, and capital-upkeep reserve funded from project revenues or distributions under rules set by regulation.

Existing resource operations will continue under current agreements until lease renewal or significant expansion, at which point the trilateral model will apply. In the interim, royalty rates for existing operations will be increased to ensure fair public return.

The trilateral ownership model applies to all non-renewable resource extraction, including potash, uranium, lithium, rare earths, and other minerals. Existing potash operations will continue under current agreements, with the trilateral model applying to any new mines or significant expansions.

This is about true partnership, equality, and co-government with the Treaty Nations who have always called this place home. Corporations are valuable, but voluntary, partners in Saskatchewan resources. They will not have a veto or be able to dictate final terms for the Province or Sovereigns. If they do not agree to the 33 1/3% stake, they will forfeit their share, which will be divided evenly between the Province and Sovereigns for a 50 / 50 split. Other ways for corporations to forfeit their share include:

• The corporation explicitly declines in writing to proceed with development.
• The corporation fails to meet capital calls within 90 days' notice.
• The corporation votes against a project that Crown and Nations both approve.
• The corporation attempts to sell to a buyer the Province and the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust reject.

The Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust will be governed by a board with representation from all participating Treaty areas and Métis governance bodies, with decision-making processes determined by the participating Nations. The Province will provide capacity funding to establish the Trust's governance structure, with final authority resting with Indigenous leadership.

Decision-making processes within the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust will be determined by participating Indigenous governments. The Province commits to working with whatever governance structure the Nations establish.

While this is not the typical ownership model corporations are used to, it avoids millions in litigation and protest-delay costs while providing a 66 2/3% immediate return on CAPEX for exploration and initial costs. It means that if we all respect each other, things can happen quickly.

Also introduced in this Act is a Value-Add Levy that increases the cost of shipping specified raw resources, like uranium (yellowcake), and other resources to be determined by regulation, to encourage local refinement over shipping raw products.

The Value-Add Levy will be set at rates that make raw export economically uncompetitive with domestic processing. Initial rates will be determined by regulation following consultation with industry, with the goal of ensuring that processing Saskatchewan uranium into fuel pellets in Saskatchewan is always more profitable than exporting yellowcake.

A steep, escalating Dormant Lease Tax will be applied to mineral leases held for speculative purposes without active development plans.

The Dormant Lease Tax will begin at $50 per hectare in year one of inactivity, escalating to $100 in year two and $200 in year three. Leases inactive for three consecutive years will revert to the Crown unless the leaseholder demonstrates a bona fide development plan approved by the Ministry.

Water resources are excluded from the trilateral model. All water rights and water-related projects will be jointly managed by the Provincial Crown and Treaty Nations, with no private ownership or corporate participation permitted.

Additionally, Saskatchewan's resource royalties will be completely redesigned to provide greater benefit and overall clarity to the people of Saskatchewan.

Resource projects not operating under the trilateral ownership model will be subject to a new royalty regime designed to ensure Saskatchewan receives a strong public return.

A Base Royalty of 30% will apply to gross resource revenue on the first arm's-length sale, or deemed sale, of the resource.

In addition, a Windfall Levy will apply where benchmark market prices exceed a threshold prescribed by regulation. The Windfall Levy will be equal to 50% of the excess value above that benchmark threshold, calculated on the volume sold during the relevant period.

Gross resource revenue means the total value received or receivable on the first arm's-length sale, or deemed sale, of the resource, before deduction of operating costs, capital costs, financing costs, depreciation, hedging losses, management fees, transfer-pricing adjustments, or related-party charges, subject only to transportation and quality adjustments prescribed by regulation.

Where a resource is sold to a related party or transferred internally, the sale price shall be deemed to be the higher of the transfer price and the applicable benchmark price.

Projects operating under the trilateral ownership model will deliver public return primarily through Crown and Indigenous equity ownership, dividends, and any standard regulated production charges that continue to apply.

The Saskatchewan Natural Resources Corporation (SNRC):

The Act will establish a new Crown corporation to be known as the Saskatchewan Natural Resources Corporation (SNRC), with a mandate to set up and operate new or expanded major resource projects in direct partnership with industry and local Indigenous governing bodies, communities, and organizations. It will represent the Crown in the 33 1/3% - 33 1/3% - 33 1/3% trilateral ownership split.

The SNRC will prioritize building new mines and other non-renewable resource extraction projects in the province. The SNRC will lead development of all new non-fossil fuel resource projects. This means opening new mines and reopening or expanding older mines, all of which will be subject to the new trilateral ownership model. The main priority will be uranium mining and refinement.

To reiterate, the SNRC is prohibited from initiating new fossil fuel projects. However, under Policy 13 - Climate Crossroads, the SNRC may serve as operator of last resort for existing fossil fuel assets transferred to provincial control during the managed sunset of the industry.

The SNRC is mandated to partner with the Saskatchewan Manufacturing Corporation (SMC) to build a mine-to-uranium-refinery-to-fuel-fabrication track in Saskatchewan. The goal is total vertical integration of the uranium power industry in Saskatchewan.

Instead of just shipping out Yellowcake, we will make the fuel in Saskatchewan. That fuel will be used to power SaskPower's CANDU reactors, with the excess fuel and electrons being sold to the market.

The Uranium Refinery and Fuel Fabrication Facility will be operational within 10 years, with phased construction beginning within the first term. Initial CANDU reactors may use imported fuel until domestic fabrication capacity is established.

• See Policy 19 - Manufacturing for more.

The SNRC board must include no less than 50% representation from Saskatchewan Indigenous governing bodies. All new or expanded resource projects will be mandated to be exclusively unionized for every stage of construction and operation.

A major resource project is defined as any extraction, processing, or related infrastructure project with estimated capital costs exceeding $25 million or projected annual revenues exceeding $10 million. Thresholds will be reviewed every five years and adjusted for inflation.

All SNRC projects will be exclusively unionized workplaces. The SNRC will prioritize hiring from local Indigenous communities and will work with unions to ensure Indigenous workers have expedited pathways to union membership and apprenticeship programs.

All SNRC projects will meet or exceed federal environmental assessment requirements and will incorporate Indigenous environmental knowledge in project design and monitoring.

SaskPower:

SaskPower will be mandated to modernize the entire electrical grid and increase generation so it can meet the needs of the 21st century.

The new grid must be able to withstand extreme weather, whether prolonged or acute. It must also be able to sustain large-scale EV charging. SaskPower will install EV and e-bike charging stations in convenient locations throughout communities across Saskatchewan.

The entire grid must be structured in layers, with neighbourhood microgrids, municipal grids, and local or regional grids nested within the larger provincial grid, so there is no single point of failure.

Grid modernization will be the largest infrastructure investment in SaskPower's history, funded through SaskBonds and phased over 15-20 years. Detailed cost estimates will be developed within the first year and updated annually.

Critical infrastructure must have islandable power.

• See Policy 20 - Disaster Resilience for more.

SaskPower must begin the process of building a Virtual Power Plant. A new rate class will be created alongside the technology platform to link household solar, batteries, EVs, and other smart appliances into a unified grid asset.

Those who sign up to join the VPP will be offered a no-money-down, sliding-scale, on-bill repayment plan for the following residential or business upgrades:

• New, ultra-efficient, electrified household or business appliances.
• New rooftop solar panels and household or industrial battery packs.
• All new appliances, heat pumps, solar panels, and batteries must be installed so they are easily upgradable as the technology develops and matures.

Those who sign up to be part of the VPP will have their solar and battery storage, and potentially other smart appliances, connected to the grid, which can then use that power to stabilize power draw throughout the province, especially during emergencies. Any power drawn from a participating household system will be credited on the customer's bill.

SaskPower must immediately begin expansion of its energy generation. Solar farms and wind farms will be built and maintained throughout the province wherever they can be most efficient and useful.

SaskPower will also develop a Nuclear Expansion Plan within 24 months. The first reactors will be planned primarily to meet Saskatchewan's own rising electricity demand, grid modernization needs, industrial growth, and electrification goals.

An initial target of 4 to 6 CANDU reactors over 20 years will guide planning, but actual buildout will proceed in phases and remain subject to licensing, financing, workforce capacity, grid readiness, and demonstrated public need.

Saskatchewan's long-term goal is to fuel these reactors with fuel fabricated in Saskatchewan through the Uranium Refinery and Fuel Fabrication Facility. Early reactors may use imported fuel until domestic fabrication capacity is established.

Export-oriented expansion, including additional reactors and major new transmission to MISO or neighbouring provinces, will proceed only where interconnection studies, regulatory approvals, and long-term market agreements demonstrate a clear public benefit to Saskatchewan.

Nuclear facility licensing falls under federal jurisdiction through the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The Province will work cooperatively with federal regulators while asserting Saskatchewan's constitutional authority over electricity generation and resource development.

Reactor siting will be determined through a transparent process including environmental assessment, community consultation, and free, prior, and informed consent from affected Indigenous communities.

To reiterate, we will be using CANDU reactors, burning our own unenriched uranium. There will be no proliferation in Saskatchewan. An additional benefit of CANDU reactors is that they allow us to create medical isotopes for various treatments, including cancer treatment. We will flood the market with these isotopes to bring the price down and help cure disease cheaply.

These new reactors will use fuel fabricated in Saskatchewan at the Uranium Refinery and Fuel Fabrication Facility built by the SNRC and SMC.

Forestry and Boreal Stewardship:

Forestry will not be treated the same way as non-renewable extraction. Forests are living systems, not one-time deposits to be emptied and abandoned. Saskatchewan's boreal forest must be governed on the basis of stewardship, renewal, Indigenous partnership, habitat protection, and local value-add.

The trilateral ownership model set out above applies to new major or significantly expanded non-renewable resource extraction projects. It does not automatically apply to forestry tenure. Forestry will instead be governed through a distinct public-interest regime under the Saskatchewan Natural Resources Sovereignty Act and related forestry legislation.

The first principle of that regime is simple: no further industrial encroachment into old-growth, primary, or intact forest landscapes.

An immediate moratorium will be placed on any new timber allocations, new forestry roads, or new industrial harvest approvals in identified or candidate old-growth forests, intact forest landscapes, high-conservation-value forests, culturally significant forest areas, and critical habitat areas until the Province, together with Indigenous governing bodies and independent ecological experts, completes a full inventory, mapping process, and permanent protection framework.

That framework will be completed within 24 months and will identify:

• Old-growth and primary forest areas;
• Intact forest landscapes and roadless areas;
• Ecologically important wildlife corridors and watershed protection areas;
• Culturally significant forest areas identified by Indigenous governments and communities;
• Forest areas where harvesting may continue under stricter sustainability and renewal rules.

Where permanent protection is established, industrial forestry activity will be prohibited.

Outside those protected areas, forestry tenure will be redesigned around Indigenous partnership, local processing, and long-run renewal rather than raw extraction.

New or renewed large-scale forestry tenures must be co-developed with the Indigenous governments and governing bodies most directly affected by the proposed harvest area.

The Province will be required to complete a Consent Protocol so that all forest planning, harvest sequencing, access-road planning, watershed protection, habitat management, and benefit-sharing must be developed together from the start.

The Province will introduce an Indigenous Forestry Partnership Framework that includes:

• A right of first offer on new timber allocations in affected territories for qualified Indigenous-owned or Indigenous-partnered forestry enterprises;
• Co-developed regional forest planning tables with representation from affected Indigenous governments, workers, local communities, and the Province;
• Revenue-sharing from stumpage, timber dues, and related Crown forestry revenues generated within affected planning areas;
• Capacity funding for Indigenous forestry planning, monitoring, guardianship, and technical participation;
• Stronger procurement and partnership pathways for Indigenous forestry, silviculture, restoration, and value-added wood manufacturing businesses.

Forestry stumpage and timber dues will be redesigned to ensure the public receives fair value for public timber, while recognizing that forest management must also pay for renewal, habitat protection, road reclamation, and Indigenous participation in governance. Timber from Saskatchewan's public forests must no longer be treated as a cheap input to be exported with minimal local benefit.

A Saskatchewan First Timber Allocation policy will be adopted so that public timber allocations prioritize domestic value-added processing, including Saskatchewan lumber, engineered wood, mass timber, modular housing components, furniture, and other secondary wood products, before supporting low-value raw export.

Forestry governance must also include the return of good fire to the land.

The Province will establish a Saskatchewan Cultural Fire and Prescribed Burn Program, co-developed and co-governed with First Nations, Métis governments, and other relevant Indigenous governing bodies. The program will support Indigenous-led cultural burning, fuel-reduction burns, habitat restoration burns, and resilience burns near communities, critical infrastructure, and ecologically sensitive landscapes.

This is not only wildfire management. It is land stewardship. Fire has long been used by Indigenous peoples to maintain healthy landscapes, reduce fuel loads, support habitat, protect communities, and renew the boreal. Saskatchewan will treat that knowledge with the seriousness it deserves.

The Province will provide long-term funding for Indigenous fire stewardship teams, planning capacity, training, equipment, guardianship, and joint burn operations. Burn planning will be integrated with forest management, habitat protection, road-access planning, and community resilience planning.

Prescribed burns and cultural burns will be prioritized in areas where they can reduce catastrophic wildfire risk, restore forest health, protect communities, improve watershed resilience, and support species and habitats harmed by poor fire management or industrial disturbance.

Industrial forestry schedules must adapt to ecological and cultural fire stewardship needs, not the other way around.

The Saskatchewan Manufacturing Corporation and Saskatchewan Housing Corporation will be mandated to pursue supply agreements and partnerships with Saskatchewan forestry producers, wood processors, and Indigenous forestry enterprises so that Saskatchewan timber helps build Saskatchewan housing and public infrastructure first.

All forestry operators will be required to meet stronger renewal and stewardship obligations. That includes:

• Full reforestation and regeneration requirements;
• Road decommissioning and landscape restoration obligations;
• Cumulative-effects monitoring at the regional scale;
• Stronger protections for caribou habitat, water systems, and biodiversity;
• Annual public reporting on harvest levels, renewal outcomes, disturbance, and reclamation.

No operator will be permitted to cut and walk away. If a company cannot afford to renew the forest, restore roads, and meet long-run stewardship obligations, then it cannot afford the licence.

Forestry in Saskatchewan must become something different: not a quiet liquidation of the North, but a renewable public asset governed with respect, restraint, and long-term purpose.

The Funding

The upfront capital for this policy will come from a combination of SaskBond revenues, Crown borrowing, retained public revenues, and targeted support from the General Revenue Fund during the buildout phase.

The Saskatchewan Natural Resources Corporation will be capitalized initially through public borrowing and direct provincial investment. Over time, its operating and expansion capital will increasingly come from its equity share of project revenues, dividends, retained earnings, and value-added processing income.

The Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust will receive initial capacity funding from the Province to establish its governance and operating structure. Where financing is required for Indigenous equity participation in major projects, the Province will work through public financing tools and the Saskatchewan Financial Group to ensure that Indigenous ownership is real and financed, not merely symbolic.

Projects outside the trilateral ownership model will be a major source of public capital during the transition. Revenues from the Base Royalty, Windfall Levy, Dormant Lease Tax, and Value-Add Levy will be used to strengthen the Province's fiscal position, support public investment in resource sovereignty, and finance the transition toward greater public and Indigenous ownership.

SaskPower's grid modernization, Virtual Power Plant buildout, EV charging network, transmission expansion, and new generation assets will be financed primarily through Crown utility borrowing, SaskBond capital programs, and phased rate-backed investment, with provincial support where required for strategic infrastructure.

Major nuclear, refinery, fuel-fabrication, transmission, and export projects will proceed in phases. No major construction commitment will be made without updated business cases, financing plans, regulatory approvals, workforce planning, and public-interest assessments.

Forestry stumpage and timber dues will be redesigned to ensure Saskatchewan receives fair value for public timber, but those revenues will be directed first toward reforestation, ecological stewardship, Indigenous forestry partnership, regional planning capacity, and local processing support. Forestry reform is therefore treated as fiscally responsible and strategically important, but not as a major new solvency engine in the current model.

Over time, the long-term funding base for this policy will come from public ownership itself: resource dividends, power revenues, value-added processing income, fuel fabrication, electricity sales, and export earnings. The purpose of this policy is not simply to regulate private activity more tightly, but to ensure Saskatchewan captures the lasting value of its own resources and energy systems.

What It Means For You

It means Saskatchewan residents benefit from Saskatchewan resources.

It means power outages are a thing of the past.

It means the dignity of powering the province ourselves.

FAQ

• What is the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust?
• It is the collective Indigenous ownership vehicle that will hold the Indigenous equity share in major resource projects. Its structure will be co-developed with First Nations, Métis governments, and other relevant Indigenous governing bodies in Saskatchewan. The Province will not decide on its own who belongs in the Trust or how it is governed.


• What is the trilateral ownership model?
• All new major or significantly expanded non-renewable resource projects in Saskatchewan will operate under a trilateral co-ownership model. Ownership will be divided equally between the Provincial Crown, the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust, and the private operating partner, with each holding a 33 1/3% working interest. The Province and the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust will each have a veto; the private partner will not.


• How does the Province get to that ownership split?
• The Province will reserve the right to acquire a 66 2/3% working interest in new or expanded projects at audited cost to date. One-half of that acquired interest will then be immediately transferred at audited cost to the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust, creating the final 33 1/3% / 33 1/3% / 33 1/3% ownership structure.


• What happens if a company refuses to participate?
• If a company refuses the ownership structure, fails to meet its capital obligations, walks away from development, or otherwise forfeits its participation under the Act, its share will be redistributed equally between the Province and the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust, resulting in a 50 / 50 public-Indigenous ownership structure.


• Does this apply to existing mines?
• Existing resource operations will continue under their current agreements until lease renewal or significant expansion. At that point, the trilateral ownership model will apply. In the meantime, projects outside the trilateral model will face a new royalty regime designed to secure a much stronger public return.


• How is the Indigenous Peoples Resource Trust governed?
• It is the collective Indigenous ownership vehicle that will hold the Indigenous equity share in major resource projects. Its governance structure will be determined by participating Treaty Nations, First Nations, and Métis governments, with the Province providing initial capacity funding but not final authority.


• What is the SNRC?
• The Saskatchewan Natural Resources Corporation is the Crown corporation that will represent the Province in major resource projects. It will develop new non-fossil fuel resource projects in partnership with Indigenous governments and private operators, with an initial focus on uranium, mining, processing, and value-added development.


• What is the Value-Add Levy?
• It is a levy on the export of specified raw resources designed to make shipping raw materials out of Saskatchewan less attractive than processing and refining them here at home.


• What is the Dormant Lease Tax?
• It is a steep, escalating tax on mineral leases held for speculative purposes without active development. Leases inactive for three consecutive years will revert to the Crown unless the leaseholder can demonstrate a bona fide development plan approved by the Ministry.


• Why CANDU reactors?
• CANDU reactors use unenriched uranium, which Saskatchewan already produces. They fit Saskatchewan's long-term goal of building a fully domestic uranium-to-fuel-to-electricity supply chain. Buildout will proceed in phases, and early reactors may use imported fuel until Saskatchewan fuel-fabrication capacity is established.


• What is the Virtual Power Plant?
• It is a system that links household solar panels, batteries, EVs, and smart appliances into a coordinated grid asset. Participants will be able to install qualifying upgrades with no money down and receive on-bill credits when their stored power helps stabilize the grid.


• Will Saskatchewan become a major electricity exporter?
• That is the long-term goal, but only where it clearly benefits Saskatchewan. Export-oriented expansion, including additional reactors and major transmission to MISO or neighbouring provinces, will proceed only where studies, approvals, and long-term agreements show a clear public benefit.