Saskatchewan Industrial & Mining Suppliers Association

nuclear power and then translating that information into a language that can be understood by our members and by the supply base in Saskatchewan, so they can understand what the opportunities are in relation to their specific capabilities for fabrication, welding, machining, coating, inspection, environmental services, construction, etc. – the whole package.” According to Anderson, Saskatchewan currently leads the country in job creation and GDP growth with a projection of over $50 billion in new projects potentially coming to the province over the next ten years in mining, agricultural processing, and especially, nuclear power generation. Those projects could generate approximately 150,000 jobs, so creating that new workforce is a top agenda item for the association.“We don’t have 150,000 unemployed people in this province,” he states. of Saskatchewan. “It became kind of a benchmark because we could finally say, ‘Spend locally; it’s this much more money into the provincial government and/or the people of Saskatchewan,’” Anderson shares. “So, that was a big impact.” THE DIVE INTO NUCLEAR POWER Most recently, SIMSA has delved more heavily into the nuclear field by hiring Tom Kishchuk as its Nuclear Specialist. “I joined SIMSA in 2023 after a career in power generation,” Kishchuk recounts. “I was a founding employee for Hitachi’s first manufacturing facility outside of Japan for power generation, including nuclear power.We were part of the nuclear supply chain and were active in projects in the U.S. and Japan.” “I’m now using that experience to understand the technology that’s being developed in the province for 5 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 04 SASKATCHEWAN INDUSTRIAL & MINING SUPPL IERS ASSOCIAT ION