Premier talks tariffs, budget in SARM address Wednesday

In fact, as Moe pointed out to the Saskatoon crowd, threats to impose a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum were cancelled last Tuesday afternoon, but Trump later imposed a 25 per cent tariff on those same products. 

“This does have an impact, obviously, on a number of industries in Saskatchewan directly,” Moe said. “It also has an impact indirectly on other industries in this province, such as the ag industry and mining industry. This is how quickly things are changing. It’s confusing, it’s chaotic, and it isn’t good for the markets and it isn’t good for North American families.”

While many are shouting to strike back in response and continue a trade war, Moe and his fellow cabinet ministers have favoured meeting with American counterparts plus strengthening ties with markets beyond North America.

“What we advocate for wherever we go is a non tariff environment, free and fair trade with our trading partners around the world, and most certainly that’s important with our largest trading partner, which is the United States of America,” Moe said. “No one wins a trade war, in particular when that trade war has been up until recently isolated to North America. I would say that North American families certainly don’t win a trade war, and they certainly don’t win when we see tariffs applied either way.” 

The premier also noted how wealth creation in Saskatchewan has changed over the years—from being once reliant mainly on agriculture to broadening in scope to other areas such as energy.

“When you look at how we create wealth in Saskatchewan, it actually isn’t that complicated,” he said. “How we create wealth in Saskatchewan is through producing things—food, fuel, fertilizer, and many other things, and then we export those things to other areas of the world, to ourselves, and to other Canadians.”

Export values in the province rose from $17 billion in 2007 to nearly $50 billion in recent years. Agricultural products make up $20 million of those exports, a number Moe says will continue to climb.

“We exported more in agricultural products this last year than we did in the entirety of every product we had in 2007,” he said, adding that the mining sector will have a significant investment of $20-25 billion.

“We are one of the rare jurisdictions in the world where you can still bring a significant mining process project through the exploration phase, through the pre-development phase, and actually have a chance of getting it into production,” Moe explained. “That doesn’t happen in any of the lower 48 states, and most of Canada today is sanitized as well.”

Trade importance in agriculture 

Expanding on the importance of the trade relation between Canada and the U.S., Moe used an example of how inter-dependance relates to a Saskatchewan farmer.

“Every industry has a similar story to tell, and I tell it often in Washington and Houston, as to how integrated our economy is in North America,” Moe said. “When you think about it, as we work through this quick crop year and where our products come from, you’ll very much see that it’s integrated for a reason. In Saskatchewan, when you go out to seed in the spring, the first thing that you might do is you might go down to Fargo, North Dakota, and buy a big red quad track tractor. The second thing you’ll do is you’ll bring that back, and you’ll go to St. Brieux, or just outside Regina, and you’ll buy a Saskatchewan-built no-till drill. You fill it with seed, where the genetics would come from just down the street here in Saskatoon at the University of Saskatchewan from the Crop Development Centre.”

“You put potash in it from this province, you put phosphate in it from Florida, you put nitrogen in it from Redwater Alberta or maybe Oklahoma,” he continued. “You then go back down to the U.S., to Des Moines, Iowa, and you’d get a big green sprayer. You bring it back, you put crop protection chemicals in that sprayer that would be manufactured in the southeastern United States, and you go out and apply that on your crop. You go back to Winnipeg as the year progresses, and you buy a Mac Don windrower. You go back down to East Moline, Illinois, and buy a big green combine. You might go to Climax and get a Honey Bee header to put on that combine. You go out and harvest that crop. You’d have a truck that’s built in Denton, Texas, pulling trailers that are built in Annaheim, Saskatchewan, and you load your oats up into that trailer, and you’d bring them down to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Quaker Oats would buy them, and people in the U.S. would be employed, adding value to that product, and we would all have oatmeal to eat. That’s how we create food security in North America.”

Working with each other instead of fighting is how everything comes together, Moe pointed out.

“We do it together,” he said. “We don’t do it in spite of one another, whether it’s the energy industry, the mining industry, the manufacturing industry.”

Provincial budget

Moe also gave a preview of the coming budget to those gathered at the SARM conference, dropping a few hints as to what can be expected on March 19, starting with a reminder on how the province has been the only one in Canada to eschew the carbon tax on home heating.

“No other province in Canada is removing the carbon tax on how you heat your homes, the most ridiculous, inflationary carbon tax that this nation has ever experienced,” he said. “I would suggest that that should be expanded to all products.” 

Affordability is a keyword in the coming budget with measures to span every demographic in the province.

“There’s a number of tax changes that are happening as well that are going to deliver the largest single tax cut to individuals and families in Saskatchewan that we’ve seen since 2008, when we removed 110,000 people from the tax rolls. We’re going to remove an additional 54,000, people from the provincial tax rolls.”

“All of these additional affordability measures are going to have an impact, whether you be a senior, a homeowner, whether you be a student, whether you be a home buyer or a first time home buyer, whether you be a caregiver, or whether you be a person that’s living with a disability,” he continued. “These are targeted affordability measures to ensure that our province we know and love, our community, is going to remain the most affordable place in Canada to live so that we can continue to attract people to live here and work in the industries that are creating wealth for us. Our export-driven economy, our growing, vibrant economy in this province allows us to deliver when it comes to health care investment.”

In terms of health, Moe cited the success of the Urgent Care Centre that was opened last year, hinting that there are plans to build more throughout the province.

“The most expensive seat in the healthcare system is in an emergency room, and I would suggest, and it’s been shown, that many of those individuals are in there because they don’t have access to a primary healthcare provider,” he said. “We’re going to increase the access that you have. We opened up an Urgent Care Centre in Regina that is pulling people out of our emergency rooms in Regina. It’s opened as a pilot program, but is showing a great success in doing just that, and so we’re going to open another one in Regina. We’re going to open two here in Saskatoon, and we’re going to follow that with one in Prince Albert, one in North Battleford, as well as one in Moose Jaw.” 

Education was another area Moe mentioned, pointing to a nine per cent budget increase last year devoted to education. 

“I would suspect you’re going to see an increase in a week to ensure that we are addressing and providing every opportunity for success in that K-3 space in particular, an increase to fund the schools that we have announced we are building across this province,” he said. “We are making a specific focus on the outcomes in that K-3 space. We know that when a child is reading and writing at the appropriate level at Grade 3, that their educational outcomes from Grade 4 through 12 are going to greatly improve, and the opportunities that they find in life are also greatly going to improve.”

Recently, the provincial government announced $29.5 million toward the purchase of 76 portable classrooms to address classroom spaces.

“This is in addition to the schools that already have been announced, adding relocatables in high student population areas,” explained Moe.

In addressing community safety, Moe highlighted the provincial response to illegal drugs rampant in many places.

“Our communities have changed and it has changed largely because there’s challenges that we’re having as a society when it comes to mental health, but all too often there’s subsequent addictions challenges,” he said. “When you look at fentanyl and crystal meth, and today in this city, there are people dying because those drugs are available in our province, and they’re available in your community and my community.”

The provincial response has included an increase to police resources and more recovery beds in treatment centres.

“We need to get those drugs out of the hands of the drug dealers, and we need to get the drug dealers out of our communities,” said Moe.

The spring sitting of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly begins March 19 when the 2025-26 budget will be tabled.