Business leader hopeful despite Estevan’s population drop

People are leaving Estevan at a rate higher than almost any other city in Canada.

In the 2021 census released last week, the federal government reported Estevan had seen its population drop from 11,483 in 2016 to 10,851 in 2021.

That’s a decrease of 5.5 per cent, the seventh-largest drop across the country.

Jackie Wall, the executive director of the Estevan Chamber of Commerce, isn’t thrilled about the news.

“Of course it is difficult to see when you have a population drop, but it was definitely not unexpected. I wasn’t quite sure what the number would be, but there was an expectation that we would have an official drop in our census data,” she said.

She mostly blames the downturn in the area’s oil and gas sector.

“It was expected. We are a very realistic community, we understand that we have a boom-bust cycle. We’re working to mitigate that,” she said.

So what does she think the city is doing to move forward and start growing again?

For one, she points to the potential for a lot of new jobs in the energy sector — but not just in oil, gas and coal, which the city is traditionally known for.

“A lot of the businesses would say that since 2016, when this data is in comparison to, we’ve kind of settled … although we do still have challenges ahead. We are a coal transition community. We realize that we have a very prosperous coal mine right now, although we know that in the next several years that industry as far as power production is winding down,” she began.

“Now there are a lot of other uses for coal. There are a lot of things they can diversify into, and that is basically what this community is looking at.”

Outside of the industries the area is already used to, she believes there’s a lot of potential for growth in different areas.

One of those is geothermal energy.

DEEP Earth Energy is developing a geothermal power facility just south of town. There’s also SaskPower’s Boundary Dam carbon capture project.

Wall also said Estevan is being considered as a site for nuclear power if SaskPower decides to go that route in the future.

She also points to other strengths of the city that could draw people and businesses.

“We’re really looking at all of the opportunities. We have a great (agriculture) sector, and we also have a phenomenal airport, which a lot of people do not realize … So there are a lot of areas that we can really look at how to move them forward,” she said.