REGINA - Opposition New Democrats were pounding the Sask Party government Wednesday for having taken too long to respond to the tariffs imposed earlier this week by President Donald Trump.
NDP Leader Carla Beck noted that while most provincial premiers had their responses ready on Tuesday, Premier Scott Moe did not provide a public response to reporters until Wednesday afternoon.
"Scott Moe is a day late and a dollar short," Beck said, "and frankly the fact that he is the very last Premier in this country to have come out and spoken to the people of his province has not gone unnoticed.
"This is weak leadership. I've been on the phone with those hardworking and nervous Saskatchewan producers and they're very concerned. And again, Scott Moe's weak leadership and the fact that it took him so long to come out and speak to Saskatchewan people is being noted as it should."
Beck said that right now the country and province were "facing a crisis that none of us have seen in our lifetimes. Regardless of what we see in the days and weeks to come, this has been an incredible wake-up call."
"We didn't pick this fight. I hope someday very soon we see these tariffs that have been levelled against our country taken off. In the meantime, we're not going to stand by and take it."
Beck also said that at a time when "people in this province are scared, when they're angry, when they're waiting for a response from their elected leaders, it is not good enough to have Saskatchewan the last of the pack again."
She said she had talked to one producer who stands to lose in his own operation $50,000 with these tariffs. Beck added that other producers said"it's important that we not waste the crisis that we are facing, that we get our elbows up and we stand up for producers and jobs and people in this province.
"That's what our team has been doing. We've committed to work with the government going back to December. That commitment remains. But Scott Moe has to do better. Saskatchewan people deserve better than this. We will continue to push for that."
As for some of the measures announced by Premier Moe on Wednesday, including SLGA pulling sales of U.S. liquor and the cancelling of contracts, Beck again questioned why it took so long.
"What we have seen, and Scott Moe unfortunately has shown his hand here, is that he is willing to allow this province to be laggards. And that's not good enough for the people of this province."
Beck also pointed to remarks by President Trump the previous day when he "suggested that agricultural imports into the United States were dirty, uninspected and disgusting."
"The Premier cannot remain silent on that. We're proud of our producers, we're proud of what we mine and produce and export here in this province, we're proud of Saskatchewan people."
As for Moe's comments on Wednesday in which he characterized his government's support for counter-measures as "begrudging," Beck replied: "When someone comes after you like this, it shouldn't be hard to get your elbows up and fight back."
