DAVIDSON - The Premier and a local MLA hosted an evening Q&A forum in the town hall in Davidson last week, hearing from a number of people who asked them a number of questions that ran the gamut of issues that are facing the province.
Scott Moe and Dana Skoropad, fresh off a day-long tour of farms, businesses and witnessing the construction of upcoming infrastructure in the regional area, welcomed a sizable turnout of people to the event on Thursday night, July 7. The goal of the evening was to provide Saskatchewan people with an opportunity to pose questions to their elected officials and leader of the province or whatever else may have been on their mind. The Davidson event was geared to be the first of several town halls lined up for Moe this summer, designed as an open house-type event, something that couldn’t be done over the past two years as the province had been battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The purpose of tonight is to stay connected, and it’s to hear from you,” said Arm River MLA and Minister of Environment Skoropad, introducing the theme of the evening.
Premier Moe told those gathered that the Saskatchewan government is doing all they can to maximize the potential in the province.
“We’re going to do everything we can to, yes, expand the uranium industry, the manufacturing industry, the technological sector,” he said. “All of the opportunities that we have here in this province, this government is going to be working hard to ensure that we aren’t a roadblock when it comes to the opportunity that lays before us in Saskatchewan. Alongside that, we’re also going to be pretty aware and pretty cognitive of anyone else or any other level of government that is going to be put in place any roadblocks that are going to hinder us to what we believe we can achieve in this province. There are some roadblocks that are being put there, and in the months ahead, you’re going to see some of the ways that we’re going to do our level best as a province and a provincial government to ensure that we’re finding our way through those roadblocks and really charting our own course in this province. We have an opportunity that lays before us.”
Moe believes the province is looking at a “tremendous opportunity” to utilize its natural resources in order to leverage any level of growth in the coming months and years ahead.
“As we work together to achieve that, I think the sky is ultimately the limit on what we can become between now and 2030,” he said.
In touching on the much-debated carbon tax, Moe reflected on the province’s court battle over the issue and promoted Saskatchewan’s energy sector.
“We took this to the Supreme Court of Canada and we weren’t successful with that,” he said. “Some of them (the carbon initiatives) we can work within, but some of them, we have no chance of us being able to work within. There’s going to be a set of clean electricity standards that are coming out at some point in time, and there’s not a chance that Saskatchewan, Alberta and many other provinces are going to be able to achieve what the federal government is asking us to achieve. They’re essentially saying by 2035, there will be not only no coal and no natural gas, or any fossil fuel that’s producing electricity in Canada. That means that all the lights go out in Saskatoon, and that isn’t going to be very favorable in January of 2036, for sure. So, the question becomes: How can we, rather than reacting to these federal policies, how can we move into an area where we’re actually leading on a number of these policies?”
Going deeper into what the province produces as it relates to oil and the related carbon footprint, Moe said Saskatchewan stands by itself as far as having a product that is unlike anything else at the moment.
“We in Saskatchewan produce some of the most sustainable products that you can find anywhere in the world today,” he said. “Our oil that we produce in Saskatchewan has a lower carbon content per barrel of oil than anywhere else that I know on Earth. In the Lloydminster area, where we have companies that are investing in their thermal projects there, we reported about three weeks ago that relative to 2015, the methane reductions in Saskatchewan are down 60%, and it’s because of the investments in the oil industry in that area that we’re able to actually say that. Nowhere else in Canada has any type of a record like what we have in that particular area.”
Touching even further on a global scale, Skoropad added some perspective on where the province is sitting right now as it pertains to Saskatchewan’s international reach, sharing that there are notable people from upwards of two dozen different countries who see the potential in the province and want to set up stakes here.
“I don’t think people really grasp the magnitude of what’s happening here,” said Dana. “Just in the recent weeks, we’ve had a really significant contingent of folks made up of 24 international delegations who came into this province in the first quarter of this year and they’re looking to do business in this province. That can’t be overstated, the importance of that.”
Continuing to hear from those in the hall, audience member Rick Wiebe mirrored the two issues of abortion and COVID-19 in his question to the Premier.
“We’ve made history in the last number of years in what we’ve done in this province,” said Rick. “In the name of saving lives, we’ve told people they can’t worship their God, we’ve locked them in their houses, we’ve cost the livelihoods of people, and I don’t want to lay in on that, but I say it to make this point: the government has gone above and beyond in the name of saving lives. So, two questions: what is the government doing for the fact that every six days, a baby is aborted, and why is it we don’t see the same effort put into those lives? Secondly, if it isn’t being addressed, why is the effort being put into saving the lives of COVID-19 lives, as opposed to those lives?”
Moe responded, touching on how COVID-19 was unlike anything the province had seen and that although the decision-making process was difficult, the government moved forward with the most relevant information they had at the time.
“That’s a very relevant question, seeing how we’ve just seen the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the States,” said Moe. “Where we are in Canada today is we do have federal ruling on this, which is different than what was just ruled on in the U.S., and we do abide by the law in Saskatchewan. My own personal opinions on this, and I share them publicly, is that I personally am pro-life. But I also respect the fact that some of my friends and some of the people here this evening might have a different opinion with respect to that. I would say this: I don’t like all the decisions, and I was at the center of them in announcing them, but I don’t like all the decisions that we made. I’m not saying I disagree with them at the time that we made them. We always tried to make what we felt was the very best decision at that point in time, understanding that there were variants that were changing. But all throughout this, what we’ve tried to do is make the very best decisions with the information that we had available in that point in time.”
The Premier went further on the COVID topic, reflecting on the toughness that he says came with having to make such decisions.
“I’ll mention two decisions that weigh heavily on me, and they have for a long time, and will for the rest of my life,” he said. “The first was with our elderly, and in particular, our elderly who are in care homes. I knew when we made the decisions that we did, we were going to have family members who were quite likely going to die and die alone. I have a daughter that’s worked in a long-term care home from time to time, and she talked to me about when they went into lockdown. Whether it was for 28 days or whatever it was, and when we were going through this and how everybody takes a step backward, and they didn’t get that step back forward. That’s an unintended consequence that I wish there was a difference that could’ve been made, and I’m not sure there is one. The second is with our youth. Now, it’s not the end of the world for me to do what we had to do; I can do that. Our youth, their social life is everything. Think of yourself at that age. Your social life IS your life. That’s why we added priority to getting schools open as quick as possible, because we understood that there are unintended consequences of not having kids being able to come together. The impacts of that, we’ll all see going forward. Those are two decisions that’ll weigh heavily on me for the entirety of my life, for sure.”
Brian Hunstad, a defense contractor from Hanley, stood and made note of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz that was held in January 2020 just before the start of the COVID pandemic. Hunstad described a speech that was made at that event by Marian Turski, the vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, making note of a passage in which said Turski said, “Auschwitz does not fall suddenly from the skies, it was the pittering and pattering of tiny little steps.” Turski went on to describe how the actions of the provincial government have ultimately made him lose confidence in their abilities, and therefore, Moe and government have lost his vote, asking what they’ll do to ever regain it.
“So, I’m one of those people that on September 17, 2021 that you scolded and said that I’m reckless and that you’re growing tired of me, and that I’m not doing the right thing,” said Brian. “That day, after saying consistently that you wouldn’t, you implemented a vaccine passport system, segregating our society between the vaxxed and the unvaxxed. You say we are the most open province in the country and we shouldn’t complain, but to that I will say, I will never celebrate being the least tyrannical. Dana tells me that you’re a good man, and I believe it. I believe you and your advisors thought you were acting in the best interests of the province, and I’m not here to call you a Nazi and use other emotional rhetoric. But honestly, you scare me in the way that you switch on a principle decision by segregating a society so quickly without seeming to give it much thought.”
In response, a low-spoken Moe said he understood where Turski’s feelings were coming from and said that the decisions made during the pandemic were ones that the provincial government knew weren’t going to be popular across the board.
“Your point on making these decisions without a lot of thought, that isn’t the case as there is a lot of thought that are put into them by us and a lot of folks outside of government, as we worked to find our way through and do what we had to do,” Moe responded. “The vaccine passport system, for example. We had the testing option here for all provincial employees, which wasn’t available in other areas of Canada. We specifically discussed that and wanted to have that in place. Did we like having to make that decision? No, we didn’t. Times have changed today, to a degree. I think some of the unintended consequences are much more evident today than they were in those earlier days. It’s been a tough time for your government. As far as where you place your vote, I would say to all of you here: fair enough. Judge the decisions that we were faced with as your provincial government, but also include the decisions that we’re making in the months ahead, as well. It’s within your power to put your ‘X’ beside whichever party individual you feel is best when it comes to representing you. On both a personal and professional level, without a doubt, these were the most challenging years of my life, being faced with decisions that I never intended on having to face, but they come to you, and you can’t run from it. Nor should you. We made these decisions with the best interests of everybody in mind.”
The open house event, running over two hours and forty minutes, helped to provide attendees with insight into how and why the Saskatchewan government makes the decisions that they do. Following the town hall, both Moe and Skoropad were open to having further discussions with anyone who had questions or comments.
