Premier looking ahead to election, kick-starting growth in 2020

The first thing on Premier Scott Moe’s list for 2020 is winning the fall election, “first and foremost.”

Moe has it on his to-do list, and it’s also one of the challenges he knows he’s going to have to face in the coming year.

He said he saw what happened in the federal election, and now there are four minority government across the provinces, with another in the federal seat.

Moe said Saskatchewan is the next up for elections. His party will be putting forward its plan for the province, and he’s hoping the people will support the Sask. Party.

Also on Moe’s to-do list for 2020 is getting started on the growth plan which was unveiled in the fall.

“We need to start with the very foundation of how we are going to start to make decisions so that we can achieve some of the targets that we have laid out,” said Moe.

Some of those targets include having 1.4 million people in Saskatchewan by 2030, which Moe said is going to take effort.

One of the things driving the plan for growth and the increasing interest in economic independence, according to Moe, is the western alienation which Canadians saw grow in 2019. Moe said the alienation will define in some ways what Saskatchewan does in the coming year.

“I talked about economic independence, and our growth plan and how we will be making decisions to continue to expand our economic fortunes so that we can reinvest those proceeds into our communities,” he said.

Just because the calendar has changed doesn’t mean everything is brand new. Moe said the market access issues dealt with by Saskatchewan exporters last year will likely continue into this year.

“We are in a different environment, if you will, a protectionist environment around the world when we see leaders that have some very strong protectionist sentiments,” Moe said. “We see that in the U.S. to some degree, we see that in other areas of the world. This is why we are stepping forward in a very active role in opening up trade offices and investing in our relationships with our countries around the world.”

He explained that while there has been some recent good news when it comes to the USMCA, or the “new NAFTA,” there are still issues getting products to market in places like China and India.