One of the early frontrunners in the race to become the next leader of the Saskatchewan Party was in Estevan on Monday to meet with community leaders and discuss his ideas for the province.
Scott Moe, who has the backing of Estevan MLA Lori Carr and more than 20 other Sask. Party caucus members, visited the Energy City as part of his tour of the province. He stopped by the Mercury office to discuss the status of his campaign.
“We’ll be back over the course of the next weeks and months as we are looking to meet a number of different people … and to talk to people to start the work to put together our platform,” said Moe, who is the MLA for the northern constituency of Rosthern-Shellbrook.
He said he would be speaking with people from the agriculture and energy sectors, business leaders and representatives of city council while in Estevan.
Moe, who is a former minister of the environment, reiterated his support for the carbon capture and storage project at the Boundary Dam Power Station. He made numerous trips to the world-leading facility while he held the environment portfolio, and was involved with a number of high-profile tours.
“There are a number of opportunities when it comes to powering our electrical generation sources here in the province, and CCS is most notably one of those,” said Moe.
As the government continues to add renewables such as solar and wind to the province’s power grid, they still need to have a baseload power source, such as coal outfitted with CCS technologies.
“Coal and CCS is a very real opportunity for the province of Saskatchewan, but I think it’s an even larger opportunity when we look at the coal-fired electrical generation that is, around the world, already in existence,” said Moe. “This is an exciting technology and it’s necessary if we’re actually going to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Moe officially submitted his leadership campaign papers last week, becoming the first candidate to do so. He believes he had a strong start, with the caucus members stepping forward to back him.
“Now we’re up to what we need to do each and every day, which is to tour across the province and meet people, and have the discussions of what our province will look like moving into the decade ahead,” said Moe.
People have been talking to him about a number of topics, including decisions that were made so the government can return to a balanced budget in 2019-20.
“We have had some discussions with individuals with industries on those decisions, and the best way to move forward,” said Moe. “The other, more broad conversation that we’ve had the opportunity to have is where are we going over the next five years, 10 years and 20 years as a province, how are we going to get there, and what are the decisions that we need to make in order for us to get there.”
Saskatchewan exports about $30 billion of product to more than 150 countries around the world, he said. Those exports create wealth and employment for people in the province.
“If we’re going to grow our exports and if we’re going to grow our careers, quite frankly, that service those exports in the province, and ultimately grow our communities and grow our population, how do we best do that?” he asked.
Growing exports would enhance all careers in the province, and improve opportunities to increase the population.
Moe said it could be particularly applicable to such sectors as energy, agriculture, manufacturing and mining.
“We’d look at putting boots on the ground, people in those higher markets where we have significant exports, those top four to eight countries where we export a significant amount of product,” said Moe.
He has already announced his desire to have a ministry of international trade and exports replace the current ministry of the economy, and to have a premier’s council on international trade and exports that would see industry leaders deliver precise policy advice on how to increase markets.
A schedule for six leadership debates was announced the same day that Moe was in Estevan. This city was left off the list; the closest debate will be Nov. 30 in Weyburn. He believes the six debates will be a sufficient number.
He is looking forward to the debates.
The rapport with other candidates has been very good so far. Each candidate has the same goal, and a similar vision for the province, but there will be differences of opinion on various issues.
“We were on the same team prior to this, and we will be after,” said Moe.
Moe believes the goal is not just to win the leadership race, and become the next premier of Saskatchewan. The objective is also to win the next provincial election in 2020.
“We feel we have the best chance of winning this leadership race as a team, and we feel we have the best chance, then, to take those policies and put them forward and run on them in the election in 2020,” said Moe.
The Sask. Party will select a new leader on Jan. 27, 2018. The new leader will soon replace Brad Wall as the premier of the province.
Other MLAs who have entered the race are Regina-University MLA Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Saskatoon-Willowgrove Ken Cheveldayoff, Saskatoon0Northwest MLA Gordon Wyant and former deputy minister to the premier Alanna Koch.
