Need to be heard dictated by who, where we are

Small jurisdiction sometimes needs to be bold and brash

We are a small-in-population province stuck in the middle of a continent that’s dominated by what happens on either coast.

We need people to move our resources and products, but it’s hard for a landlocked province in the flat middle of North America to make people want to come here. It’s even sometimes been hard to get our kids to stay here.

As such, Saskatchewan can never be content simply representing its slightly-more-than-amillion people on a continent of 579 million people. As such, we have a sometimes seemingly irrational need to be heard and taken seriously.

It has sometimes made us louder than some would prefer us to be, whether it be cheering for our football team or demanding better policies from the federal government. But when you are further away from where the decisions are made, maybe you do need to be a little louder to be heard.

Recognizing this is perhaps helpful in understanding news stories last week showing the government pursuing questionable causes.

The first was Premier Scott Moe’s trip to Washington that the NDP characterized as another meaningless junket.

Beyond talk of potential U.S. tariffs on Canadian uranium, there didn’t seem to be valid reasons for the trip after the good news that the U.S. was lifting tariffs on steel and aluminum. While there, Moe seemed more interested in thanking U.S. Republicans and hobnobbing with the likes of Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte (convicted of assaulting a reporter) than thanking the federal Liberal government whose tariff strategy seemed to work.

But as unbecoming as this was to many, politics is about personal contacts especially if you are a politician leading a small, distant jurisdiction where there’s little opportunity to influence those affecting your economy. Moe’s trip to the U.S. East Coast was arranged well in advance of the May 17 tariff lift, so thanking American politicians — possibly with the goal of winning future battles in mind — was about his only play. (Moreover, it would actually be more problematic if Moe was unwilling to meet with border politicians, with whom he shares interests.)

As for not being more vocal in thanking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government, this was bad form for a provincial premier, especially one apt to criticize this particular Liberal administration. Again, politics is all about personal contacts, so it would have done a world of good for Moe’s own credibility and his relationship with the current federal government to give credit where credit was due.

However, it’s also rather obvious that Moe firmly believes this small jurisdiction can better exercise political influence as part of an informal political coalition with Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives (who may be in power in five months) and the U.S. Republicans who all wholeheartedly share the belief in preserving the petro economy.

When you are a small jurisdiction far removed from the population base on either coast, it’s imperative you capitalize on whatever you have. In Saskatchewan, that means oil and potash wealth.

Saskatchewan knows it will never be Calgary, Denver or Dallas when it comes to gleaming office towers. But we do lay claim to being the world leader in potash, which should afford us legitimate claim to some head office jobs here.

Alas, such expectations run headlong into who and where we are or, rather, why the movers and shakers of the corporate world prefer not to locate private head offices here.

So we saw last week the pressure to ensure Nutrien maintains at least a few head office positions in Saskatoon, a reasonable request given that Moe’s government has eagerly provided subsidies to keep and attract head office jobs here to the tune of $25,000 to $100,000 per head per year.

Doing things in this way does seem a little loud and brash, not to mention untoward.

But it is what we do based on who we are and where we are: a sparsely populated place in the middle of the continent where it’s not easy to be heard or taken seriously.