Scott Moe shares thoughts on federal election, tariffs on Evan Bray Show

Saskatchewan’s premier returned to the province from a trip to Germany and the U.K. this week, as Canada gears up for a federal election and works to address issues around tariffs.

Scott Moe joined guest host Brent Loucks on The Evan Bray Show on Friday to share some details of his trip to Europe, and weigh in on the election, tariffs from the United States and China, the overdose crisis in Saskatoon and several other big issues on the minds of Saskatchewan residents.

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

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

BRENT LOUCKS: The past few days, you were in Germany for this massive trade show. I was on their website reading some of the details about it. Over 4,000 different exhibits, exhibitors, representatives from over 150 countries. What were you doing there?

PREMIER SCOTT MOE: Well, the Hannover Messe, as it’s known, is the largest industrial trade show on Earth. It’s held there every year, and there’s a number of Saskatchewan industries that are there. And what we were there (for) is doing some of our our diversification effort, that we do – market diversification. We were there advocating for industries and businesses that were there too, so that we can further diversify – not always replace, but further diversify – our markets from, for example, the United States of America. Does it work? Certainly, it does. In fact, I would say that this has been a focus of ours for a decade and a half now, as a government, to support our industries in their their diversification around the world. And today, despite us being about 55 per cent reliant on our export market into the U.S., that’s that’s among the lowest, if not the lowest, reliance in Canada. And so yes, it does work, and we need to continue to make efforts in that space. And that’s what this was about.

Everybody, every country in the world is thinking that same way right now, because of what’s happening with these U.S. tariffs. So it’s going to be a bit of a challenge, because everybody wants to find that extra piece of the pie out there.

MOE: Certainly that is the case. And you know, Saskatchewan is province of now 1.25 million people. We do export to over 160 countries each and every year, and have had those efforts to form those relationships in those countries of interest to us. We’ve increased our countries where we export over a billion dollars to eight this past year and, thankfully, we’ve made that effort in the years gone by, because I would say in many cases that we’re maybe a couple steps ahead of some of some of the other places in the world, and are able to pick up market share when we see fairly alarming global trade changing decisions being made by a certain individual holding a chart in front of a television camera.

The tariff talk, of course, is focused so much on the U.S. these days, but of course we’ve got the situation with Chinese tariffs impacting our agricultural community, and it almost seems like that’s taken a bit of a back seat right now to everything else that’s going on.

MOE: Yeah, the tariffs that we have really in place in this province today is 100 per cent on canola oil and meal, some pork tariffs – the Chinese tariffs that you had mentioned – and then a 25 per cent tariff that’s impacting our steel industry. Largely we’ve been exempt from the other U.S. identified items thus far. There’ll be a forestry conversation coming, and we’ll work with the federal government and continue to advocate and educate with our American counterparts, but that’s what we’re facing right now. Not totally unique in Canada, where our most significant challenge in the short term is that that Chinese tariff on canola. And we can’t let the federal parties that are running today and the current prime minister ever forget that. That’s the one that’s going to have an impact on jobs in the short term in Saskatchewan.

We’re three weeks away from this federal election that everybody is looking at and wondering “How is this is all going to play out with our newly appointed prime minister, Mark Carney?” How do you feel about what you’re seeing and hearing from him right now, in the way he’s dealing with the U.S. tariffs?

MOE: It’s better than it was, I would say. And I think most would, I would agree with that. I would encourage people to look at a longer term than just the short-term, month-or-two relationship with the United States of America. Our relationship with the U.S. is larger than one man. We’ll find our way through that. It may change, and I would say it is going to be different moving forward due to what’s happened, but we really do need policies that are going to allow us to unleash our full economic potential, not just in Saskatchewan, but as Canadians.

And so when we’re making our decision over the course of the next now three weeks or so, keep that in mind. What do we actually want to our country to look like with respect to a policy development and creating wealth and opportunity for us – our vintage, but also for the next generation, our children.

Premier Scott Moe joining us this morning, literally off the plane just hours ago after a trip to Germany and the United Kingdom. What were you doing in the U.K.?

MOE: Often in the U.K. we engage on a number of items. We sell them a fair amount of uranium for nuclear power, and not only uranium, but the nuclear industry as a whole, and partnerships. But the financial sector as well, we engage with. We actually closed the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday, I believe, and engaged with all of the major financial institutes, as well as a number of wealth funds. The people that are investing in mines and agriculture value-added investments and resource investments in Saskatchewan are in the financial markets, and we want to make sure the financial markets are aware of just how secure and stable the investment environment is in Saskatchewan. And so we talk directly to the financial markets (about) the opportunities that that industries can see in Saskatchewan in the future.

How are you feeling about things in Saskatchewan right now? And of course, I can look at the Stats Canada numbers that have come out this morning showing that Saskatchewan continues to have the lowest unemployment rate. We’re down half a point today to 4.9 per cent in the month of March. And yet I know there’s a lot of people in our province looking for work, that are struggling to find quality jobs. What’s your sense of what’s happening with our job market and the status of people in our province?

MOE: For those looking for work, I’d say, keep at it, because there are jobs out there. Saskatchewan is leading the nation in job growth this last month – up 6,000 – in a Canadian environment that’s down 30,000. We have a balanced budget in this province, the only balanced budget that will be introduced across Canada, including the federal budget this year, and we have the highest credit rating of any province across the nation in Canada. And so despite all of the short-term challenges we see with Chinese canola tariffs and the conversation that’s happening due to one gentleman who happens to be the president of the United States, I’m bullish on the medium- to long-term outlook for our province, and we need to keep our head down and keep working at getting to that free and fair trade environment where we do so very well.

It’s interesting to hear people becoming more aware of where they’re buying things – where the items that are produced, where they come from. All of that pointing to, of course, what’s happening with the U.S. tariffs. One of our listeners, Shelly, had texted in here this morning wanting us to ask you about the decision to renew a $60 million contract for LifeLabs. They’re the company that you go to to do your blood work, and of course they’ve got offices all around the province here. And Shelley’s concern is, why are we giving this contract to an American company?

MOE: Well, it was a Canadian company when we provided it, through a tender process. And we do this whether it be for our hunting and fishing licenses or something similar. But LifeLabs was a Canadian company when we provided the contract, and there is an extension opportunity for that contract. But these are exactly the contracts that we’re looking at right now in the current environment. Are there Canadian options as we move forward? And Canadian options that need to be able to deliver the same level of service, and that that is very much the key point in the in the case of LifeLabs.

In the case of delivering health care, we need the level of service and we need to invest in in the capacity of service that we have in in our system, whether it be the public system more directly, or whether it be the publicly funded private diagnostics that are being provided by a company like LifeLabs. So this is precisely one of the procurement spaces where we are having a look. We will not sacrifice patient care and the capacity that we have to access health care in our province. But if there are Canadian opportunities for us to look at, this is the time for us to do that.

One of our listeners says the fact that Saskatchewan has the best credit rating in Canada is very positive. Banks deal with facts, not political rhetoric, so Scott Moe and the Sask Party should get credit for the position our province is in these days. I assume you agree?

MOE: I’d agree, and it speaks to the importance of approach that we’ve taken – it’s maybe a little bit different than some other provinces’ approach – to engage, to advocate and educate with the U.S. And despite the conversation that’s going on, they’re our largest trading partner and are going to be our largest trading partner after this discussion. That relationship is larger than than one person. And then second to that – and this is something I think we all need to be thinking about in the advent of a federal election – policies matter. And we’ve been at odds, at times with, imposed federal policies that are there, but we’ve also been imposing our own policies that are providing an opportunity for investment and an opportunity for jobs. And it’s really starting to work, with the highest job numbers in Canada, a balanced budget, and the highest credit rating in Canada.

With that federal election coming three weeks on Monday, have you got any sense how this is going to play out? On one hand, there seems to be this ground swell of people that like what Mark Carney is saying. They like his style, they like his approach. But on the other hand, people are saying “yeah, but a lot of the people that were though were there in the office under Trudeau, they’re still there.” And then you’ve got these big crowds that are turning out for Pierre Poilievre’s rallies. What do you make of what’s happening here?

MOE: That’s a pretty good assessment of what’s going on. You know, Mark Carney’s biggest attribute is that he’s not Justin Trudeau, and he is a fresh face. And now people do have a choice between Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre. And there are a number of the same people that are making policy with respect to the Liberal Party, but the same is true with the Conservative Party as well. And so I think we have to look at the track records, look at where we were a month ago and how quickly things have changed in this current conversation, but then make your decision as to what you actually want Canada to look like over the course of the next four years, not just the next three weeks.

I saw Preston Manning this week came out talking about if the Liberals regain power in this federal election, we’re going to see more and more talk about western separatism. Do you buy that?

MOE: Well, I wouldn’t deny that, and I hear it increasingly as of late, but what I would say is it’s policy driven. You know I align very closely with the policies that the Conservative Party and Pierre Poilievre are putting forward, because they will unleash the true opportunity that we have, I would say, across Canada, in unleashing our resource potential. And so it would be very obvious where we would align, largely, in this province. And that being said, those are just simply policies. And you’ve seen the Liberals move a little bit into that space. I would encourage them to move quite a bit further into that space so that we can truly unleash that resource strength that we have in Saskatchewan to contribute to the betterment of our nation.

We are Canadians, and we’re Canadians together, and I think that’s being shown at the premiers’ table through this U.S.A. negotiation and how we advocate. There’s differences, but we certainly agree on much, and we agree on the unity and the strength of our nation. What we need is a federal government that will work alongside us so that we can unleash the true potential that we have as Canadians, and that’s policy driven, not so much person driven.

Something else, and you were chatting about it with me before we went on here a little bit – the social ills that we are dealing with, not only in our province, but all over the world these days. And we look at overdose situations here in Saskatchewan with incredible numbers that our responders are having to deal with. How are you feeling about the way we are trying to make this a better situation for people that are struggling right now?

MOE: We’re at the front end of it, and I do like the direction – and it’s not to say we won’t alter it as we go along – that we are going in here. And it’s most evident right here in Saskatoon with the poisonous drugs that are that are on our streets today and spreading to other communities. I think Regina police had made a significant bust just yesterday, a fentanyl bust. But a few things there. First, the (Provincial Emergency Operations Centre) committee that has come together to provide and offer and communicate about the resources available with the City of Prince Albert, city police, everybody’s at that table. Second is the recovery-oriented system of care that we have, and it’s really focused on on two things: building that recovery capacity, and also then bringing behind it the enforcement capacity so that we can to ensure that those people that are providing this poison to our friends and family members in whatever community we live in, they’re going to be held accountable. And so you’re going to see a piece of legislation this spring that is going to increase the consequences for those that are dealing fentanyl and crystal meth in our communities. You’re going to see the 100 additional municipal officers that we have offered to those seven communities that use municipal officers, and another 180 RCMP officers coming into our province in the near future. So it’s recovery and building that capacity and access, and it is enforcement of the laws that we have.