Premier Scott Moe
The long awaited first meeting between the federal government and the Saskatchewan government has finally happened.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sat down with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in the Legislature on Friday during his two day stop in Regina.
@JustinTrudeau walking into the Legislature for his 1st meeting with @PremierScottMoe.#skgov #skleg #cdngov #canpoli #YQR #SK #Canada #news pic.twitter.com/mbEsY3PTsB
— David Boles (@DavidJBoles) March 9, 2018
The two men spoke for over 45 minutes, with Moe saying he felt their conversation was quite productive and strong.
“I think the entire conversation was a constructive conversation,” he said. “And the fact the conversation is happening is necessary.”
“This is our federal government. This is our Prime Minister. And we have to engage, in particular, on opportunities where we can progress Saskatchewan interests.”
Moe said one of those interests spoken about was trade, both foreign and domestic.
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“We did talk about trade agreements,” he said.”Not just with the US, but all around the world. Notably, our opportunities to get those products to market, through rail, through pipelines to ports here in Canada.”
Moe said overall, he found a lot of common ground during his talk with Trudeau. One area he didn’t though was the issue of carbon taxation and the federal governments’ carbon policies. He said he made it clear to the Prime Minister Saskatchewan has their own climate change and carbon reduction policy and it doesn’t involve a tax.
“Saskatchewans’ stance with respect to carbon taxation is pretty strong,” said Moe. “Although we did have a discussion with respect to where are we going in the province on emissions, the equivalency agreements we need to work with our federal government on coal fired electricity generation as well as methane emissions.”
“Those equivalency agreements are paramount in us achieving some of the targets we’ve put forward in those industries.”
Moe says they also discussed carbon sinks and how the opportunities lies within it (carbon capture, zero storage etc.) to export the information and technology out of Saskatchewan and around the world to increase emission reductions and more effectively combat the effects of climate change globally.
