A DIVISIVE YEAR IN POLITICS
The premier vows to continue fight
For Premier Scott Moe, the political low point of the year came in a tension-filled office on Parliament Hill.
It was Nov. 12, 2019. That was the day he met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to present, in person, his “new deal for Canada.”
“It was a frustrating meeting for me, likely one of the more disappointing meetings that I’ve had in my political career,” he said in a year-end interview with the Leader-post.
The meeting was important for Moe. It had been a “challenging ” year for Saskatchewan, capped off by a divisive election that proved how deep the frustrations ran on the Prairies.
In Moe’s view, Trudeau spent the past year making it worse.
“The biggest challenge that this province has had over the course of this last year has been on two fronts,” he said. “One has been natural resource prices. Two has been natural resource policies coming out of the federal government — and so we need to continue to work with, stare down at times, our federal government.”
But Trudeau would not be stared down. Moe came out of the prime minister’s office saying he heard nothing new.
It was a fitting symbol of a year of intergovernmental drama that produced plenty of harsh words, but little in the way of concrete change.
Moe’s government spent 2019 directing a full rhetorical and constitutional assault against a federal carbon tax that still doesn’t show any sign of going away.
A May decision at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which ruled the tax constitutional, was another tough moment for Moe. But it didn’t change his mind about broad-based carbon pricing.
“We were aware that this was not an open and shut case for either side. It is an area of jurisdiction that has some questions around it. I was disappointed,” he said.
“I firmly believe that it doesn’t work. The carbon tax does not reduce emissions here in the province of Saskatchewan.”
As Moe looks forward to 2020, he’s trying to remain hopeful that federal-provincial relations might improve in the New Year.
“We have the same Prime Minister, but a much different face to our federal government. It’s a minority administration, they are going to need the support of at least one other party with any of the legislation that they move forward on,” he said.
“So I am optimistic that we will see some different direction.”
There were also high points, including on the national stage. Moe pointed to his recent meeting with other premiers that produced a more united agenda to take to Trudeau.
That meeting, Moe explained, is how he prefers to work.
“I’m viewed as a very confrontational politician with our federal government,” he said. “That’s not my first place of comfort. My first place of comfort is where we got to with the premiers. It’s to collaborate, identify the challenges, identify positive solutions, pick one and go.
“We haven’t been able to at this point do that with the prime minister.”
Other victories Moe cited came on the provincial stage. He celebrated the completion of the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital and the Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford.
“What I am most proud of over the course of the last year is the opening of two new health care facilities that are indicative of what growth can achieve in this province,” he said.
He said his growth plan, unveiled this fall, is the key to ensuring the money is there to pay for those types of projects.
The March budget also stood out as a victory for Moe. It marked the end of a three-year struggle to return to the black after tumbling resource revenues drove the province into the red.
For the premier, it’s more than an accomplishment. It’s a way to differentiate his party from the rival NDP — which has publicly mused about deficit spending — with an election campaign set for this coming fall.
“There’s one party that is committed to continuing to balance that budget and not leveraging against the next generation’s future and there’s a party that is willing to spend their children’s income far into the future,” Moe said. “So that’s a difference.”
He said the key to victory in 2020 is keeping a steady course, but also an open mind.
“We need to continue doing exactly what we’ve been doing for 22 years now as a party, to focus on the growth of our economy, focus on investing the proceeds of that growth back in our communities, that’s the simple answer,” he said.
“The other part of that is we need to keep listening. We need to keep listening to people right across this province, whether they ’re in urban or rural Saskatchewan, wherever they are.”
Saskatchewan people should expect a focus on three points over the coming year, according to Moe. Saskatchewan will build up its economic independence, its financial independence and its political autonomy — all the better to resist the kind of challenges he saw in 2019.
That means balanced budgets. It also means a push for more control over issues like immigration and tax collection. In an end-of-year surprise this December, Moe floated efforts to explore a Quebec-style approach on those two points.
As Moe looked back at all the fire and fury of Saskatchewan politics in 2019, he said he harbours no regrets.
He dismisses the idea that an unexpected debate over abortion was a distraction. Comments by his then-minister of rural and remote health, Greg Ottenbreit, turned the focus on anti-abortion sentiment in the Saskatchewan Party.
Moe said he believes that debate is healthy.
“I don’t think it’s a distraction,” he said. “I think it’s something that should be debated from time to time, at any level of leadership, if you will.
“There are laws, and those laws need to be respected, despite what your personal beliefs may be on whatever topic that may be. So, I have my own personal views. But I also have my own personal views about following the law in the nation of Canada.”
And he still isn’t willing to let NDP Leader Ryan Meili off the hook for refusing to attend the Regina Rally Against the Carbon Tax.
Meili raised concerns that it was a “yellow vest rally without the yellow vests.”
“I’ll be honest with you, I did not have any idea or understanding of where the leader of the Opposition was coming from with respect to his claims — accusatory claims — namely directed at a farmer from Estevan, but also directed by grouping anyone that would attend such a rally in a yellow vest as being anti-semitic and anti-islamic,” he said.
Meili later insisted he was talking about the worst of the worst of the yellow vest movement, not everyone who planned to attend the rally. But eight months later, Moe faulted him for tarring people with the same brush.
“I didn’t understand why it got as personal,” Moe said.
“He shouldn’t have said it, and he should apologize for it.”
But Moe’s party was willing to make things personal, too, issuing ads against Meili calling him “out of touch with Saskatchewan” and making links with unpopular figures like federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau.
The premier isn’t about to apologize.