Moe talks access after India trade trip

It has already been a busy week for Premier Scott Moe, with the opening of the spring sitting of the Legislature just a day after returning from a trade trip to India.

Speaking on Gormley on Tuesday, Moe said these kinds of trips are about unfettered market access.

“(That includes) non-tariff access for lentils, of which we’re the largest supplier of lentils to India. (It’s) the same for potash; we’re the largest supplier of potash. We have historically provided India with uranium for their clean nuclear power as well and we need to revive that market access as well,” explained Moe.

But the premier also wants to go beyond just raw goods and to export what he called Saskatchewan’s innovation, specifically pointing to 1,000 no-till drills that were built in Saskatoon and recently sold in India.

“We were able to observe in a field in the province of Haryana one of those drills doing a demonstration,” he said.

“So (we’re) very much not only continuing to maintain our market access for our traditional products that we supply, or raw products, but really moving past that to the innovative products that have provided success here in Saskatchewan agriculture and employing Saskatchewan people to build and assemble those drills and send them to a very large market — the fifth-largest economy in the world — which is India.”

The trip seems to have inspired Moe when it comes to his government’s expected passing this spring of the Saskatchewan First Act, which he believes will protect Saskatchewan people and industries from federal government overreach. Moe said Saskatchewan’s time is now.

“The products we have have never been in demand like they are today. Saskatchewan is well-poised for the next number of years to continue to provide in even a bigger fashion the food, fuel and fertilizer that the world needs,” said Moe.

Passing that act is among Moe’s priorities for the spring sitting, along with passing The Saskatchewan Firearms Act.