The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben speaks with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe ahead of First Ministers' Meeting

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Guests and Topics: Guest: Scott Moe, Premier of Saskatchewan If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So you're hosting the family barbecue this week, but everyone knows your brother is the grill guy, and it's highly likely he'll be backseat barbecuing all night. So be it. Impress even the toughest of critics with freshly prepared Canadian barbecue favorites from Sobeys. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show, and I want to thank you for joining us. You may be listening on the radio, on the Chorus Radio Network. You may be listening on a streaming app like the iHeartRadio app, or you may be listening in podcast form on Amazon, on Apple, or on Spotify.

But now we have a new home on YouTube as well. We post content over the course of the day, and you get to see my lovely face. So just search up Ben Mulroney Show or The Ben Mulroney Show or the Ben Mulroney show and there you will find some of our interviews, some of our conversations, some of our panels. So on June 1st and 2nd, this is the time of year

where prime ministers get really busy with a lot of meetings. We know that our prime minister obviously has the G7 summit coming up in Cananaskis, Alberta. That is in mid-June. He's got the NATO summit that's coming up as well. That's a very big deal as well because apparently on the table could be a discussion on elevating the commitment by member states in terms of their spending on military, on their military from 2% of GDP up to 5% of GDP. I don't know how Canada is going to get to that. We haven't been we've been mired around 1% for so long. I have no idea where we're going

to find that money. But that is a problem for the guy who wanted the job, Mr. Prime Minister Mark Carney. But one of his signature promises, and to be fair, it was a signature promise of Pierre Poliev as well, was to break down inter-provincial trade barriers. And by and large, it does seem like there is a willingness to do that across this country, more or less. Mark Carney promised that they would all be gone by Canada Day. That's not happening. There will be legislation tabled by Canada Day. And so that's not the same thing. Am I going to get super upset over a change like that? Not really. But the devil's in the details, right? What does it mean to reduce and eliminate all of these inter-provincial trade barriers, keeping in mind that the sacred cow of all inter-provincial trade barriers

is supply management of our dairy industry. You know, it's, the Quebec and Ontario are very precious about that. And if they get to keep that, then aren't other provinces gonna say, well, if I get to keep that, if they get to keep that, then we wanna keep a protection for this industry or that industry. So this will be a test

of Mark Carney's ability to bring people on side, to convince them that life is better in a world with fewer barriers. And, and, and also he said on the campaign trail, I'm going to get rid of all inter-provincial trade barriers, but supply management is here to stay. I'm not here to debate the merits of supply management. I've had people come on to talk about why it's a great thing. I've had people come on to tell me why. It's a terrible thing.

But I don't know how your opening salvo can be, we're gonna get rid of all inter-provincial trade barriers except for that one. And that one deeply affects Ontario and Quebec. So what's Saskatchewan going to do? What's Alberta going to do? What's BC going to say they need to protect? I, if he can, if he can eliminate all interprovincial trade barriers with the exception of supply management, that will be a testament to his ability to negotiate. It just will. Like you'll have to give him kudos

for doing what he said and saying what he did. And so that is going to be on the docket for this in-person first ministers meeting on June 1st and 2nd in Saskatchewan. One of the issues that I know is important and central to the people of Saskatchewan. One of the issues that I know is important and central to the people of Saskatchewan is the tariffs on canola products by China. You will remember that we as a nation placed a 100% tariff

on Chinese EVs. We don't want them in our country for a number of reasons. One of them is an issue of national security. They have too many cameras and too many listening devices. And we don't know who's got that data. And we don't know if the Communist Party of China is able to essentially spy on our country with these cars. We have no idea. And so because of that, we placed a tariff with these cars. We have no idea.

And so because of that, we placed a tariff on their cars and they reciprocated by tariffing canola coming out of Saskatchewan, which is a huge export for that province. And some people believe that what that does is we've prioritized our EV industry over our farmers. And here to discuss that and a few other issues, we're very happy to be joined by Scott Moe,

the Premier of Saskatchewan. Premier, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your time. So I was just bringing our audience up to speed on sort of the tariffs on canola, which is a huge industry in Saskatchewan. Can you give us some more

detail as to the impact that those tariffs are having on that industry and any communication that you might have had with the federal government on lifting getting getting China to lift that that tariff? Yeah, first, we've talked not only with the Chinese ambassador to Canada, the Canadian ambassador to China, I've talked to the Prime Minister as well as a

number of other ministers about it. And Prime Minister Carney and then his cabinet is engaging with China. And our ask is for the federal government to request to start negotiations on how we can

work through this trade relationship with China. From China's perspective, it's a counter tariff on the tariff on steel, aluminum, and electric cars. And so that is going to have to be part of that conversation moving forward. And the impacts on the Western Canadian agriculture industry and largely from our perspective, the Saskatchewan canola industry are pretty severe. We've worked hard and have attracted investment the last number of years to increase our value added oil production

and to lose a market like China, which is a large market, one that we've worked hard to acquire is incredibly challenging for the pricing of that product. There's really three products. There's seed, there's canola oil, and there's canola meal. And- Mr. Premier, do you feel like farmers have been sacrificed at the altar of an EV industry in Canada

that is not actually performing very well? To some degree they have, yes. And yeah, that is my feeling and I've voiced that. The secondary thing to this is we are being hurt by the there's a price reduction, I would say, on canola today. It's still not at zero, of

course, and we still do have market access to markets around the world because of our global presence and because of the effort I would say that we've made as a province for the last decade and a half in ensuring that we have those provincial relationships with countries outside of Canada, around the world, and have introduced and worked alongside our exporting agri-food industries to ensure that they have solid and sound relationships

as well. So the canola does flow to other markets and even sometimes it will flow into China from those other markets as well. However, there is a price reduction that is in effect today. So farmers are being sacrificed at the farm gate for some of the policies that our federal government has made.

And so for all the reasons that we are, you know, a nation of Canada, they need to get to the table and that's our ask. Get to the table with China and work through this. Mr. Premier, I know that there's going to be a lot on the table to discuss on June 1 and 2 at the First Minister's Conference that Mark Carney will be in attendance at in your home province. I want to talk about his stated goal of eliminating all interprovincial trade barriers but the sacred cow that he says he's not going to touch is supply management of the dairy industry that really benefits Quebec and Ontario. And I wonder,

can he truly find a national consensus if that is off the table? Well, like, if you're the same would hold true. I think when you look at building Canadian economies, you need to realize that it's a sum of its parts. It's 10 provinces and three territories. The same goes when it comes to interprovincial trade. And so everything has to be on the table. And I would say the quickest way

to make great strides in this space is to take the offer that the Western and Northern Premiers offered last week coming out of Yellowknife was to expand the New West Partnership to the other six provinces and to the three territories. The three territories over there were open to having a look at that. But we would ask the other six provinces to

join as well. It would be a great stride forward. It's the gold standard when it comes to free and fair trade between the four Western provinces. To expand it to the rest of Canada would be the easiest, the quickest and the most open trade that we've ever experienced in this nation.

Well, Mr. Scott Moe, Premier of Saskatchewan, I know that you've got a lot to prepare for because this summit is coming up in short order. So as the host, I wish you the very best. I hope that Saskatchewan puts its best foot forward and I hope that your concerns are heard and acted upon by this new Liberal government. Thank you very much for joining us today. I share all of your hopes and desires.

Thank you for having me and wishing all your listeners a great week. All the best. All right, after the break we're going to take a look at the travel industry, the airline industry in this country don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the Italian leather handbag. Is that from Winners? Ooh, or that beautiful silk skirt. Did she pay full price? Or those suede sneakers?

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