By Greg Nikkel
The Saskatchewan Party started down a new road on Saturday night, as Rosthern-Shellbrook MLA Scott Moe was elected as the new leader and premier-designate on the fifth ballot, defeating challenger Alanna Koch with 8,075 votes or 53.87 per cent to Koch’s 6,914 votes, or 46.13 per cent.
“It is an incredible honour to be elected as the Leader of the Saskatchewan Party and the next Premier of Saskatchewan,” said Moe. “I want to thank the other leadership candidates and their teams for a competitive race that significantly grew and renewed the Saskatchewan Party. I know the ideas presented and the new supporters gained during this election will keep our party strong in the days, months and years ahead.”
“I’m really excited for Scott. He’s been a good friend of mine, and I felt he could do a good job as leader. That’s why I gave him my support,” said Weyburn-Big Muddy MLA and Environment minister Dustin Duncan, who had declared his support for Moe early on in the leadership race.
“It was a long campaign,” said Duncan, noting that with the preferential ballot system used in the race, it was hard to know going into the leadership convention on Saturday who was going to be ahead. Now with the voting completed, he added, the transition to the new leadership will begin.
As of Monday, Duncan said he’s not sure whether his role will change or if he will be in the new cabinet, but will continue to serve as the Environment minister until Moe sets his leadership team in place, and he is sworn in by the Lieutenant Governor.
In his first scrum with the media on Monday afternoon, Moe said he will have the new government and cabinet sworn in this week.
He noted that there were some good policy initiatives brought up by his fellow candidates, and he’ll be speaking to them about which ones might be incorporated into the policies for the new government.
Asked about his promise to inject some $30 million into the budget for Education, Moe said, “We’re going to work very hard to get our campaign commitments into the upcoming budget, both financial and non-financial commitments.”
One of his commitments was to repeal the PST on insurance, including hail and crop insurance, and life and health insurance as well, and he indicated he will be talking to representatives of the industry to look at implementing this in the upcoming budget.
Moe said he has had a conversation with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who congratulated him, but noted the topic of Moe’s quotation of Pierre Trudeau did not come up in that conversation.
The quote was in reference to the carbon tax, where Moe vowed to continue fighting that for Saskatchewan, and if Trudeau wonders how far he’ll go in that fight, his response was, “Watch me.”
He had not spoken to his counterpart in Alberta as of Monday afternoon, but Moe expects he will be talking with her soon on a number of issues, including trade.
“We’ll have some philosophical differences, and I think that’s okay, but I think there’ll be a number of points that we’ll agree on as well as we talk,” said Moe.
In regard to setting the age level to legally buy marijuana, Moe said he wants to have a caucus discussion on this before the government decides this issue.
The premier-designate met with Premier Wall on Monday morning, and Moe said he expects that they will be having a number of discussions together as he relies on Wall for advice from time to time.
“I am forever thankful for ihs guideance in the last number of years as I worked with him and was a part of his cabinet. I think his leadership style has rubbed off on a number of the people that he’s worked with, and I hope a little of that experience has rubbed off on me. He’s been a great leader for Saskatchewan and for the party,” said Moe.
There will be changes to the cabinet, he added, but said people shouldn’t look for wholesale change in any of the positions.
“We’re working our way through some of those changes, and I hope to strike a balance in this time of renewal in different positions,” he said.
Duncan felt a good sign for the party was the fact that 27,000 people took out party memberships during the leadership campaign. “That’s really unheard of to get numbers like that. In Saskatchewan politics, it’s been a long time since a party had 30,000 members,” said Duncan, pointing out that having five candidates running was also a sign of the strong interest in this race.
The race never got very contentious or heated with issues, which Duncan said “is a credit to everybody that ran” and shows they all knew there more than just the leadership at stake, as this sets the team in place to fight the next provincial election set for 2020. He felt there was a good exchange of ideas between the candidates as well with the various platforms put out by the candidates.
“After it’s all over, we can come together and keep our eye on what the real goal is, winning the vote in 2020,” said the MLA.
At the leadership convention, Moe thanked supporters and committed to working with all of the other leadership candidates and all party members to ensure the Saskatchewan Party remains strong and united going forward.
“Our party needs to remain united and strong to defeat the NDP in 2020 and for many more elections after that,” said Moe. “Saskatchewan people expect us to continue providing a free-enterprise government that uses common sense, stands up for their interests and works towards a growing and prosperous province. I look forward to immediately getting to work as Premier for all the people of Saskatchewan.”
Moe added he will continue to stand up for Saskatchewan in opposition to the imposed federal carbon tax, saying that it is inefficient and unnecessary.
“We’re going to keep standing up to the federal government on this issue, which is in direct contrast to the Saskatchewan NDP,” said Moe. “Instead of standing up for Saskatchewan, the NDP is selling out Saskatchewan through their approval of the federal carbon tax.”
A total of 17,159 members voted in the leadership election, a turnout of 63.3 per cent. This number is higher than recent leadership elections held by the Alberta United Conservative Party, federal NDP, and federal Conservative party.
