Tank: Meek Moe talks tough on trade — with new PM, not Trump

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We finally got a glimpse of the combative version of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who had gone missing amid the dire threat of a trade war with the United States.

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But those hoping Moe would join the chorus with other Canadian politicians in tough talk on responding to the unprovoked tariffs by American President Donald Trump were likely disappointed last week.

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Moe resurrected his tough-guy persona Thursday, but only to make demands of Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, leaning back into the divisive rhetoric against the federal Liberal government where he has always seemed most comfortable.

The difference now, of course, is many see the importance of a united Canada as paramount amid the turbulence of external threats to the nation’s economy due to unjustified punitive trade measures.

Moe believes Carney’s most urgent duty as the new prime minister should be to engage with China, which has announced 100 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports of canola oil and meal.

The Chinese tariffs represent retaliation against 100 per cent Canadian tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles and a 25 per cent levy on Chinese steel and aluminum. Those tariffs were imposed in October, prior to the November election of Trump.

Moe suggested the electric vehicle tariffs were introduced to appease former president Joe Biden, which some will find ironic, since Moe is one of the few voices outside the Trump administration still pretending that fentanyl flow into the U.S. from Canada represents a genuine threat.

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Notably, Moe held his news conference in Saskatoon, which is suffering through a chilling toxic drug crisis.

Yet he’s got a solid argument in suggesting the canola industry be given priority over protecting the nascent electric vehicle production industry.

According to the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission, the sector employs 55,000 people in the province, including growers, more than 10 times the number of jobs in the oil industry Moe likes to promote so much.

Meanwhile, electric vehicle manufacturing is expected to employ 184,000 people by 2030, according to Clean Energy Canada, but only 7,000 were employed in the Canadian industry in 2000.

Some of those jobs could be produced in Saskatchewan in the critical minerals sector, even though Moe sneered at electrical vehicles as products “literally no one is buying in Canada.” (Electric vehicles actually accounted for nearly 12 per cent of Canadian vehicles sales in 2023.)

But Saskatchewan grows more than half of the nation’s canola with exports accounting for $14.5 billion, including nearly $5 billion to China and $7.7 billion to the U.S.

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And, to underline the disdain Moe’s government harbours for electric vehicles, the province announced it is doubling the annual “road use charge” for EVs from $150 to $300 in its budget this week. That represents an odd move for a product nobody is buying.

While Moe congratulated Carney on assuming Canada’s top job, he also offered unsolicited advice for Carney to cancel his planned trip to Europe to focus on tariffs from China and the U.S.

“Not good,” Moe assessed of the message sent by Carney’s Europe trip. “We don’t have a trade war with the European Union today.”

Moe also warned of closed canola crushing plants and job losses in Saskatchewan and the long-term loss of markets.

Plus he suggested if the federal government fails to convince China to remove the tariffs, the “legacy of closed industries” will haunt the Liberals in the looming election campaign.

Canada’s new finance minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, said Thursday while still minister of industry that the government intends to leave the Chinese tariffs in place.

Moe added it seems “likely” Canada will have three prime ministers this year, clearly indicating his preference for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and apparently unimpressed by Carney’s apparent revival of the Liberals from what seemed like certain electoral oblivion.

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Carney also announced Friday he intends to immediately scrap the consumer carbon tax, which Moe has opposed loudly and vehemently since he first became premier in 2018. So you might expect there’s room for a better relationship than Moe had with departing prime minister Justin Trudeau.

But it appears unlikely Moe will relinquish his identity as a federal foil, even in an era when the real threat is coming from outside the country.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

@thinktanksk.bsky.social

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