REGINA - Premier Scott Moe was in a reflective mood as he looked back at what was a challenging year in Saskatchewan.
In a lengthy year-end interview at the Legislature with SASKTODAY.ca, Premier Moe pointed to both global challenges seen in the Ukraine and Middle East, at national challenges including ever-increasing environmental regulations from the federal government, and also provincial challenges in health care, education, and in trying to balance the budget. These challenges play out as the province enters what will be a provincial election year in 2024.
Here are highlights of Moe’s responses on the variety of issues discussed during that interview:
On the national and global challenges Saskatchewan faces
“There’s some real challenges nationally. We see a Russian invasion of Ukraine is continuing and intensifying. We see Canada‘s relationship with what is the largest economy in the world now, with India, being somewhat challenging. We’re working on that from a provincial perspective. Now we’ve seen the terrorist organization Hamas essentially invade Israel. So very challenging time, I think, when you look internationally.
And herein lies some opportunities for Canada to do what we traditionally have done as Canadians, which is really to promote getting along, to open up avenues... for many of the entities around, to see that the greater good in where we’re heading as a global citizen is collectively. And that's maybe part of the reason why later in this year we attended as a provincial or sub-national jurisdiction a very international event in COP28, to really bring forward what Saskatchewan is doing as Canadians to the world and to put that on full display. I think Canada has a larger role to play in bringing people together as opposed to dividing people and nations, so I think the sooner that we get back (to that) as Canadians, the better off we will be, and I say that globally.”
On growth in Saskatchewan
“We continue to grow in Saskatchewan. We have jobs that are arriving, careers that are arriving in community after community. We have a potash mine that’s doubled down on investment. We’re seeing approvals of other mines — uranium mines, net-zero copper mines moving forward. A challenging year in agriculture in certain areas of the province, but overall agriculture continues to progress as we climb the value chain with investments, continued investments in canola crush and meatpacking and opportunities that are there, and we are seeking people continuing to move here.
And we also see a government that is very committed to building the necessities that we need in our communities in order to best manage that growth. We have 15 schools that are under construction, large-scale hospitals that are in the planning stage and are about to start construction in many cases.
One thing I think about when looking back over the past year, and all that is going on…I think of the additional 200,000 people who moved here from other areas, and add to that all of the people who stayed here.
When I was young, luggage was the grad gift… it’s funny because it’s true. It was a grad gift, and the expectation was if you were going to make something of your life, it was probably not going to be here. It was going to be in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto or some other place in Canada or around the world, and that’s no longer the case. So we have in addition to those 200,000-230,000 roughly people who moved here, we have 200,000-300,000 400,000 young people, young families, who have chosen to stay in Saskatchewan that didn’t decades ago.
And so they wouldn’t be aware or wouldn’t remember what maybe things were like in Saskatchewan 15 or 20 years ago when we didn’t have population growth, when 19-year-old kids finished high school and left the province, when we didn’t have the need to build new schools, certainly didn’t have the need to build 15 of them in one year — about 90 of them now built and reconstructed over the last 15 years. We didn’t have the need to replace hospitals and add additional hospital infrastructure like the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital, because we simply weren’t growing as communities and we weren’t growing as a province.
So as I look ahead and look back over this past year and look ahead to the next year, when we head into an election year…. I think of the growth we’ve achieved in this province, how that growth is something that we are becoming accustomed to as Saskatchewan residents. We’re expecting we’re going to have new schools built next year, on top of the schools built this past year. And it’s incumbent on us just to pause for a moment and recall remember that that is not the way it’s always been here.”
Election year theme of “build and protect”
“Certainly it is — building our economy. You’re seeing that happen before our very eyes with record exports this year, $52 billion, that’s (on top of) record exports from last year. And so we’re building an economy, and it’s through the fruits of that economy that we are able to make the investments that I’ve talked about in schools, in our education system and healthcare, both in people as well as in the infrastructure, and sometimes in new ways of looking at how you’re going to deliver healthcare.
Mental health and addictions — we just renewed our five-year plan. It’s going to be a recovery focused plan, expanding the recovery beds that are available, changing how the intake would be in urgent care centres instead of our emergency room. When it comes to mental health and addictions, in particular, these are new ways to deliver care in the province, and the only reason that we’re able to actually invest in these new methods is through the strength of a growing and vibrant economy.
So that’s the 'build' part — building systems, building services, building actual infrastructure alongside our communities, and doing so through the economy that is also building.
We need to protect that as well as we move forward, because as I said this has not always been the way it’s been in Saskatchewan, however accustomed to it we have become in the last decade and a half. We have pressures coming from other levels of government, pressures coming from some of the uncertainty that’s happening in other areas of the world that are changing supply chains, and changing quite frankly who is allied nations and who is not.
We’re part of that global world trade infrastructure in Saskatchewan that does export over 150 countries around the world. So we’re in tune to all the threats that we have to our economy. We’ll do what we need to to adapt in that global atmosphere and the global relations that we have. That’s why we were in Dubai at COP28 to ensure that Saskatchewan is actively represented in that global sphere.
We will also do what we need to do to protect the industries that are creating wealth and opportunity in our Saskatchewan community from the federal government, which quite frankly, in many cases has chosen to at times ignore their own reality of the situation, but are finding out quickly that when you ignore reality that’s one thing, but you certainly can’t ignore the consequences of reality. And we’re seeing that with five different regulations imposed on the energy industry alone.
For example, we have the carbon tax. We have the clean fuel standards. We have the clean electricity standard. And just in the last couple of weeks we had the methane cap as well as the cap on trade put on that industry. There is no industry in the world that has applied regulations like that, no oil industry in the world, let alone carbon tax and a cap and trade. There’s no industry in the world that has a carbon tax and a cap and trade system on it, which is pushing up the price of fuel, which is pushing up the price for us to heat our homes in Canada. It’s pushing up the price for us to produce food in Canada. Pushing up the price of that food to be transported to a grocery store. It’s pushing up the price the price of that food to be chilled and kept fresh in grocery stores and all along the way. So the inflationary challenges that we were experiencing at grocery stores and the fuel pump, that’s all of our own doing as regulations flow from the federal government.
And so what we’re going to do is our level best to ensure that those potentially temporary regulations do not have a long term impact on the cost of living for Saskatchewan families. We’re doing so by the introduction of the Saskatchewan First Act, we’re doing so by moving to remove the carbon tax off of natural gas and home heating. As well, those who heat homes with power will also have a portion of the carbon tax removed as well, and that mirrors the decision that the federal government made that would primarily benefit Atlanta Canadians.
So you will see us working in that global sphere on behalf of Saskatchewan industries, residence and opportunities, but you’ll also see us working in that national sphere of those challenges that are coming from our federal government that have an impact on industries that are creating wealth here, but also on the families, in the cost of living increases that we are all experiencing that are directly a cause of decisions made at the federal level.”
On NDP raising the issue of affordability
“It is the opposition party that is is propping up the Prime Minister and the federal Liberal party. It is the NDP party that votes alongside them each and every time. That is allowing them to continue with introducing the affordability challenges that Saskatchewan residents and Canadians are experiencing. And so the NDP party in Saskatchewan and other provinces should have the courage to stand up to the federal party and say enough is enough. Canadians can’t afford this Liberal government anymore and we need to make a change.”
The tone of the fall sitting
“Too acrimonious.
The first (special) sitting was a response to a judge’s decision on a policy that the government had formalized across school divisions, in reaction to one of the school divisions changing their policy around parental rights to be involved in their child’s class. And so with that response, we had always said and been clear if that policy we had formalized… if it was found not to be in effect that we would pass legislation to ensure that it was.
That led into the general sitting of which we saw our province of Saskatchewan and the place of government, our legislative assembly, succumb to some of the global uncertainty that I mentioned earlier…”
The Nov. 20 protest by pro-Palestine demonstrators:
“Listen, we’ve had many, many protests in this place of government. The place for those protest# is out front of this Assembly. But what we saw was that protest come into the very Legislative chambers where it should not be. There’s some questions, and some very vocal questions about what role a couple of NDP MLA‘s may, or may not have played in bringing that protest into the Legislative Assembly in an unprecedented matter, shutting down the operations of government. So I would just say with respect to that whole situation, this is yet again a sign that Saskatchewan is not in any way immune to what’s happening to globally. Saskatchewan is very much a province it does have a global presence, and what happens globally can have an impact right here in our capital city, and in communities across Saskatchewan.”
Deficit challenges
“I know we’ve seen by midyear the surplus that we had is evaporated, and there will be more churn as we find our way through the last half of the year.
But one should rightfully and duly note that we are very reliant on the price of natural resources in this province, and that’s why, when the price of, for example, potash or oil are up, that we’re careful not to spend that surplus on annually reoccurring expenses.
That being said, at times when the price of those natural resources may slip a little bit, we don’t want to be in a position where we’re hiring or firing doctors or teachers on the price of a barrel of oil for example.
So we have to find that balance over a period of years of how of do we continue to invest in what Saskatchewan residents expect their provincial government to invest in, in particular healthcare and education, but it is going to speak to the challenges that we have. We have collective bargaining contracts that are coming forward, for example. Our educators, our teachers across the province…
You need to be careful in the lean years, but you have to be equally careful in the years of plenty, the months of plenty, not to lock in those long-term deficits —- locking in an investment that is unsustainable, and balance that all the while with what Saskatchewan people expect. They expect additional investment in, for example, mental health and addictions.
They expect additional investment in how we are addressing some of the challenges in our classroom, for example. And I think that’s, in fairness, is what some of the educators have been raising, and the union has been raising, at the bargaining table. And the fact of the matter is we’re working closely with school divisions on some recommendations that came about a jointly appointed committee, and some other recommendations on how we address some of those very concerns around classroom size and composition, and actually fund some of the potential ways for us to make our our classrooms a better and more productive learning environment. So we are doing that work, not only with the educators but with the school divisions primarily on how we can improve our learning environments across the province.”
Still challenges in health care
“It’s not an exclusive-to-Saskatchewan challenge as well. I’ve been hearing this week some of the other provinces have also been having challenges in the ER is in their healthcare systems as we enter the fall season where there’s some respiratory illnesses that will put pressure on those types of things.
I would say largely our Health Human Resources Plan, which I have often referred to as the most ambitious action plan in Canada, is showing results.
I think the number is about 800 nursing students that have been hired into the system in the last year, over 400 other offers made to nursing grads and international nursing grads that are making their way to a facility in a community in Saskatchewan. Continuing to recruit physicians, lab, x-ray techs — but a challenging environment nonetheless, and again a challenging environment right across Canada.
I think there’s something to be said as well as we see in Regina most notably, but also coming in Saskatoon, some of the different ways we’re going to able to deliver healthcare in the future with the opening of the urgent care centers, both providing that urgent care, but providing an intake for those that may be having a mental health crisis or unfortunately, have entered a life of addictions and want to make a change.
So we need to, yes, continue to recruit medical health professionals into our systems but I think we also need to look at how we can invest in health care, and whether there is a way we can deliver it differently.
We are investing in a number of private surgeries that are going to be offered in the province that’s going to open up some theatre time for public operations… So it’s a collaborative approach using all the tools that we have. The Health Human Resource Plan, the most ambitious health human resource plan in Canada, is but one of those tools that I think is maybe not providing us the most notable success yet in Saskatchewan, but certainly is allowing us to keep pace or stay ahead of the pace of some of the challenges that we’re seeing in other provinces across Canada.”
