Sask. 'moving forward' with $1.15B Lake Diefenbaker Irrigation Project despite incomplete feasibility study

The government of Saskatchewan says it is "moving forward with constructing" a $1.15-billion irrigation project, despite having never completed or publicly released a feasibility study that was supposed to examine whether it is a good use of public money.

Earlier this year, Premier Scott Moe announced "we will begin construction of the early works" of the project in 2025. 

That has critics worried that the government may be launching an ill-thought-out mega-project — spending more than a billion dollars to benefit just a handful of farmers.

Robert Halliday, a leading water resource engineer who has extensively studied the Saskatchewan river basin, says the lack of transparency has him worried.

"Faith in government is plummeting," he said. "This kind of stuff just gives government a bad name." 

In April 2021, the province asked the accounting firm KPMG to do a feasibility study on the Lake Diefenbaker Irrigation Project, which is aimed at providing expanded irrigation to mitigate the effects of climate change. The study was to examine, among other things, what the project might contribute to the economy and whether that would justify the cost.

That review was supposed to be completed by March 2022, according to the government's RFP requirements. However, the province says the document is still "not finalized," so it can't be publicly released.

Halliday wonders why the province is moving forward without completing its due diligence. 

"It seems like the cart is before the horse here," he said. "It's almost beyond belief that after doing almost four years of study … they've got no product that's available for public release."

He said there are many crucial questions that remain unanswered. How many farmers will take part in the project? What will they have to pay to participate? What's the likelihood that increased financial benefit from irrigation will cover the cost to taxpayers? Could this project attract secondary processing and what would the impact of that be? And much more. 

He's also concerned that the government has, so far, failed to do any detailed work examining potential environmental impacts.

He wonders if, with a provincial election looming in the fall, the government doesn't like what the KPMG report concluded.

"Maybe the report found that the economics don't add up very well and that's why the province is refusing to release the report," he said.

Dave Marzolf, a farmer from the Lake Diefenbaker area who has been paying a lot of attention to this project, said that while it obviously would benefit the few hundred farmers who will get guaranteed water to their fields, it's unclear how this project is good for the rest of Saskatchewan people.