Sask. Premier Scott Moe talks tariffs, trade and China trip on Evan Bray Show

Back in the province after a trade mission to China, Premier Scott Moe joined the Evan Bray Show on Friday morning.

Moe and Bray caught up on the trade issues that have dominated headlines in recent months, including China’s tariffs on canola, Canada’s tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, the rocky trade relationship with the United States and more.

Read more:

• Poll suggests most Canadians favour cutting EV tariff for canola relief
• Sask. govt invests $3 million in Saskatoon homelessness services
• Third person charged with attempted murder in Regina shooting that injured 11-year-old girl

Listen to the full interview here, or read the transcript below:

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: You’ve been you’ve been busy over the last little while. Can we start with the trip to China? I’ve heard you talk about it being more positive than expected. Can you talk about that?

SCOTT MOE: It was. We met with the people at the appropriate level that we needed to meet with. For instance, the ministry of commerce – that’s who has the seed tariff on – and the GAC, or the General Ministry of Customs in China, and that’s who has the oil, meal, pulses and the pork tariffs on as well. And so we were able to meet with both of those organizations and a number of others, and I was happy with the outcome of the meetings. But that being said, there’s a lot more work to do and it needs to be done by the federal government. We’ll support them in doing it.

This, clearly, is tit for tat for our Chinese electric vehicle tariffs. What led to this?

MOE: I think it heard it best described that this is a political issue. We aligned with the U.S. on a number of items, and we’re going to have to negotiate a political solution to it. There’s no doubt that that is the case. However, I was encouraged returning from China that there is a path and there is an avenue, and other countries have negotiated just that – some degree of a solution to it.

I know once you came back, you were able to have a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney. I think it’s great that you were able to have a one-on-one meeting with the prime minister. Do you have a sense that they are willing to take whatever the concrete next steps are in this battle?

MOE: I do, and I would hope that there’s maybe two or three ministers that are going to be in market in China in the next three to six weeks. I would ask, too, the parliamentary secretary that joined us in our mission, that he hopefully would be a conduit of consistency in that engagement as well. And what we really need right now is to show our hand and to engage, engage, engage, with the hope of the prime minister being able to sit down with the president of China either at the G20 later this calendar year or the APEC summit, and that would be ideal as to find a resolution this calendar year. And that’s the goal and the target that I hope we can support and encourage our federal government to get to.

There’s a couple of things kind of happening ancillary to this. China extended the deadline to complete their anti-dumping investigation. Is that indicative of good news for us?

MOE: Well, as I said, engage, engage, engage is what my encouragement has been to the federal ministers and the prime minister, and then look for signals. You know, vice minister Lee from the Ministry of Commerce in China was here at what they call the JETC, or the Joint Economic Trade Commission. That’s a signal that they’re ready to engage. From China’s perspective, the fact that the Chinese extended that the seed anti-dumping, the final report, that is a signal that they’re ready to engage. Canada is looking for ways to engage as well, and Saskatchewan is supportive of that. And I think if we had a number of more ministers on the ground in China engaging in the next number of weeks, that would also be a signal to the Chinese that we need to negotiate a path forward, like Mexico has, like the European Union has, to ensure not only a good path for the Canadian ag industry, even farmers, but also a good path for food security for China.

This is a delicate dance. You’re dealing with U.S. tariffs, so knowing that the Chinese EV tariffs are something that the U.S. is giving us a thumbs up on, but is hurting us with the China trade relationship, do you expect to see anything come of this Supreme Court case coming up in November regarding the legality of us tariffs?

MOE: I don’t know if the courts are going to play a role in what is, you know, entirely political discussions when it comes to tariffs and trade and resetting trade relationships around the world. And I don’t know that if all countries would even obey the courts at this point in time, in how this discussion has went. At the end of the day, I think we have to keep what is in the best interests of Canada and Canadians first and foremost as a national government. And for us as a provincial government, when it comes to Saskatchewan and our contribution to this nation and to food and energy security in the world that we need to keep focused on, that we also need to understand. Our largest trading partner is the U.S. Our second largest trading partner is China. We have India, we have the European Union, yes, but those are, by far and away, the largest trading partners that we have in Saskatchewan and largely across Canada. And so we need to understand the reality of the situation and put our nation’s interests at the forefront of every conversation we have and find the best path forward. Challenges are there, and we see them on the news every night. There are opportunities in all of these conversations that we’re having, and that is why we need to keep engaging, is to find those opportunities and ensure that we, as Canadian industries and people, can capitalize on them. They aren’t as obvious, but they’re there, and we have to find him.

I feel like there’s a bit of a tug of war going on right now on this issue of Chinese EVs. You, of course, are doing what you can to to get those Chinese EV tariffs either removed or at least balance the trade relationship. At the meantime, Doug Ford in Ontario is urging the federal government keep these Chinese EV tariffs in place. Are we hurting each other, provinces to provinces, on this issue?

MOE: No, and I think we have to keep the entirety of Canada’s best interests in mind here. The answer likely isn’t zero on the tariffs, and it is an 100 per cent. Other countries have found a path through this discussion, and we can, as Canadians, as well. And when I say keep Canada’s best interests at the forefront, we should not, in any way, approach these negotiations like we’re going to sacrifice one industry in one part of Canada for another job in one part of Canada. That’s not what this is about. This is about retaining all of the jobs that we have in Canada, and whether it be through Bill C-5 or others, actually enabling our industries to expand and create more jobs in our province and in other provinces across Canada. And I’ll talk with Premier Ford. The talk of sacrificing or picking or choosing one industry over another, we’ve seen too much of that by the federal government in the last 10 years, and we need to start getting away from that.

Premier Moe, the first five projects of the nation-building priority projects from the federal government were announced. Saskatchewan is involved in one of them, the copper mine. Of course, another five are coming out in November. Your thoughts on this? Are they taking us in the right direction?

MOE: Well, they are in the short term. Bill C-5 is a piece of legislation where the federal government can regulate the successful approval of projects through a regulatory regime that the Liberals have brought in over the last decade that is simply unworkable. And so Bill C-5 is a good stopgap or short-term solution to an unworkable regulatory environment. We’re happy to see the McIlvenna Bay Project moving forward. It’s fairly far through the approval processes. We have two more uranium mines that have all of the provincial approvals, and would hope they would move into that process sooner rather than later, but at the end of the day we need to do the heavy lifting, as well as national government, in fixing the uncertain regulatory environment that has been brought into place in the last decade. That’s the heavy lifting that’s really going to precipitate the ongoing investment. And herein lies one of those opportunities that I was speaking of, for all Canadians.

The relationship between the province and the feds, this has been an interesting journey. Over the last number of years, when the government changed after the election, I remember distinctly the news conference you held where you said, “OK, we need to push ‘reset’ on this relationship.” Then you said, “You know what? I like what I’m hearing. But let’s see what the action is when the rubber hits the road.” Has the rubber hit the road with the feds yet?

MOE: Starting to, but there’s much more road for that rubber to hit, I think. And there’s a lot of action that that needs to happen on a number of fronts, notwithstanding the discussion we had about market access into not only China, but continued market access with our largest trading customer, and that is the United States of America. And so one thing that has changed a bit in the last year is, for 10 years – and this is how we felt in Saskatchewan as we were having things done to us by the federal government and our prime minister that weren’t in the best interest of Saskatchewan opportunities – today, we’re actually having things done to us as a nation by other nations and leaders in other nations around the world, and we do need to come together as Canadians, and there is a role for our federal government and our prime minister to play in defending Canada’s interests – the entirety of Canada’s interests. The situation has changed to some degree, and I would say that we’re going to support the federal government in defending the interests that Saskatchewan has that contribute to Canadian success, all the while working with the federal government to actually develop some of the industries that are underdeveloped the last decade, and creating additional wealth for Saskatchewan and Canadian residents. There is the opportunity.

I want to touch on a couple of other quick things before we end our time here. Temporary foreign workers. Pierre Poilievre has said the program is broken. It needs to be scrapped. As recently as last night, I was at an event with a number of people who run businesses in this province and say “No, we can’t do away with this. It’s got its place. It’s got its role.” Your thoughts on on the temporary foreign worker issue?

MOE: I’d say the entirety of our immigration program could use a review, and should be reviewed every every few years. That is an important program to have, and I would say that the review should always be with a focus of putting a layer of economic priority or economic immigration as kind of the guiding light. As we make decisions in this space, it’s good when somebody that is going to make their home in Saskatchewan or Canada can have a job. If you have that economic lens on your immigration policy, it’s good for their family if they are working and contributing to the community, which is also good for the community, the province and the nation. And so I think any any immigration lens or review should really have a focus on prioritizing the economic attributes of immigration, because it’s good for the family that’s making a home in Canada, it’s good for the community where they live, and it’s good for the province and nation in where we live.

We just found out this week, Saskatchewan is keeping COVID vaccinations free this fall. Not all provinces in Canada are doing that. Why was that the right decision?

MOE: The majority of our other vaccinations, like flu and such, are free as well, and people are free to go get one if they choose. And if they don’t choose, that’s that’s fine as well.

Last topic, and one I’m pumped up about, is this considering of tailgating for Rider games. Have you tailgated before, premier?

MOE: No, but I have seen it. My son and I had went to a college ball game years and years ago, and they tailgated all day, and it was literally like 40,000 or 50,000 people tailgating.

I just have to think this is going to draw people who may not actually go to the game, but would come to Saskatchewan, come to the community, just to be part of the tailgating. I think this is exciting, something that the province is trying to make happen.

MOE: It’s tremendous when you see it, too. Televisions and trailers and barbecues and everything set up, and everybody just having a really great time. And I don’t think any all of them go to the game either, but the Roughrider organization had requested a conversation around this, and we want to do anything that we can to support all the organizations, professional or amateur, that we have in the province, whether it be lacrosse, whether it be football, whether it be hockey, whatever that is. And so when an organization like the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who are really the heart and soul of the CFL, come and say, “Listen, we want to explore the opportunities for tailgating. You’ve seen the success south of the border and the NFL and college ball and so, you know, I think it’s a very open thing for us to have a look at as Rider Nation,” and this is a good year to have the discussion, because looks like we’ll be in the Grey Cup. And I’m very, very confident that we’re going to bring that Grey Cup home. And what is most beautiful about that is we’re going to bring it home from Winnipeg.

That is a great, bold prediction to end this conversation. I love it. Premier Scott. Moe, thank you so much for your time.