Sask. premier discusses flooding, compassionate intervention, social media ban on Evan Bray

Tackling some topics at the forefront of Saskatchewan residents’ minds, Premier Scott Moe joined The Evan Bray Show on Wednesday morning.

Moe’s interview on Wednesday covered spring forest fires and flooding, the decision by Saskatoon Centre’s MLA to leave the Saskatchewan NDP and the province’s survey for parents about a possible social media ban for kids under 16.

Read more:

• Former NDP MLA says she was muzzled by party leader on Compassionate Intervention Act
• ‘All we have right now is each other’: Family rescued by boat after flooding near Nipawin
• Meath Park homeowner says this year’s flooding is the worst in two decades

Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript below:

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: Last year at this time, we had over 100 forest fires burning. Now we’re seeing the flooding. What are your thoughts on on the province’s role in what we’re seeing with states of emergency?

PREMIER SCOTT MOE: Our immediate role is through the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, highways, anywhere we can across government just support our communities, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those volunteers, keep the water out of communities, try to protect the roads as much as we can, and then we’ll turn to standing by those very same municipalities, First Nations communities, in rebuilding those roads and replacing any of the homes that are there. We have the provincial disaster-assistance program and other programs that we can utilize at that point, but right now it’s about keeping water out.

Another topic I was going to mention to you just broke yesterday afternoon. Betty Nippi-Albright, who is NDP MLA for Saskatoon Centre, has decided to step away from the NDP. It doesn’t look like she’s crossing the floor to your party, but she is sitting as an independent. Any thoughts on that?

MOE: When our opposition party is having troubles, I’m not going to say a whole bunch and get in the way of any of those troubles from a political perspective. Betty is very principled in the the voice that she brings to the floor of the assembly, and she appears to be standing by those principles. I’m not sure her reasoning and behind the action that she’s taken, but I know she is a principled MLA, she’s passionate about being a voice on a number of important issues on the floor of the legislature, and she’s finding issue with her party in having that voice heard. That’s a principled decision that it appears she has made.

Once the dust settles, will you have a chat with her? Is that something that you would do?

MOE: We talk to opposition MLAs, despite what people might expect, frequently, so I’d certainly talk to her at some point in time, because, as I say, she has a very principled view on a number of issues and a number of topics. And then there might be something that the government can draw from that. Whether she’s in the NDP caucus or sitting as an independent, that wouldn’t change.

The federal government is talking about looking at perhaps a social media ban for youth under the age of 16. We’ve seen this in other parts of the world. You’re taking an approach where you want to hear from Saskatchewan, and there’s going to be a postcard survey mailed out this week. What prompted that?

MOE: On the surface, it seems like a very simple decision: Are you going to ban it for youth or are you not? But once you actually talk to parents, just even a little bit, it becomes much more nuanced than that. I think parents, largely and in theory, might say, “Yeah, no. A ban is good.” However, there’s many parents that might allow their children to watch YouTube for half an hour while they’re making supper on the busiest night of the week. And so there is a little bit of a nuance, a more detailed conversation to this, and we actually want to know the the details and where parents stand on a few of those nuances so that we can properly represent them. The federal government seems open to moving in this space, or at least having the discussion in this space, and we want to know very accurately where the the minds of parents and families are in this province, so we can represent them precisely in that conversation and then possibly consider, maybe, some co-action, whether it be a national action and overlaid with provincial action. At the end of the day, if something is going to be effective in this space, it would have to be some national action or maybe (with) some provincial assistance to that, but would have to be some national action. So, as the federal government seems willing to get into this conversation, we want to be very precise with our representation of Saskatchewan parents. This is an important issue, and it’s arguably one of the root causes of some of the social challenges that we’re seeing in many of our communities across this nation.

I’m in a unique position in this job that I get to check the pulse, on a daily basis, of the province. I can tell you, there’s a ton of support for this move. People love the fact that the government is actually reaching out and wanting their input. I think about the pronoun issue, which predates my time sitting in this chair, but was there an opportunity there to maybe kind of tone things down in the province a bit by doing this sort of an approach?

MOE: I think the political discussion that came out of our bill on parental rights was a little bit more than I even thought it would be. That bill was was about involving parents in their children’s decisions – in the classroom, classes, field trips, all these sorts of things, and yes, changing their name or changing their gender. We strongly believe, to this day, that it’s the right thing to do to involve parents in that discussion. There is a whole political debate that came about that that found its way to the courts eventually, but at the end of the day that was just simply about bringing parents closer to their children’s decisions that are being made at school. Involving the teacher, yes, but the teachers are not parents. Parents are parents, and they should be involved intricately in their children’s lives.

Is this maybe a new formula that the province will use to seek some feedback on some of those issues that are really important, to understand the way people feel?

MOE: Potentially, and we’ve used it in the past. We used a very similar program format when we consulted on the original growth plan, for example, sending out mail outs. I did it in my constituency, and I was actually surprised at the time of the of the response rate that I got. And I would just say that about this mail out, we’re hoping for a very high response rate. It really helps qualify the government’s position, and really helps us in making an impact on this discussion nationally. And if we do find that we’re going to move, we’d be able to move pretty deliberately.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had lots of discussions, I’ve been in many small communities in this province, and it feels like seeding and everything that comes with spring is a big discussion. But what’s going on with Monette Farms, this application for creditor protection, has a lot of people talking about the impact that could have from an ag/economics standpoint – everything from farmland to the creditor list that exists. What is your take on this? What does this signal to you?

MOE: There’s always questions when there’s a large farm in the area, a large landowner in the area on are they utilizing foreign money? Well, they aren’t. And the fact that we see creditor-protection issues in one instance in a large farm in this province tells you that it’s Canadian financial institutions that are having those discussions with whomever that is. And it happens in many years with many different farms across the province. And that’s point one: If you want to own more than 10 acres in this province, you have to be a Canadian or a permanent resident. That’s the rules. Many, many farms have been through the Farmland Security Board process checking on that. We have a very robust system in place. It was enhanced with some of the auditor’s recommendations just this past year. But we are going through a review this summer to look at our farmland ownership rules, again, likely with an eye to to ensure that the the current rules that we have in place are enforced, always, at the front end, and so there never is a question after the fact. I’m confident in the system that we have. I’m confident in the the Farmland Security Board that does their work. But we are going through that review and I encourage people that may have questions to participate in that review.

The notion of involuntary treatment or compassionate intervention, that’s another piece of legislation that was approved yesterday. I know it’s not going to come into effect until the regulations are done – which will likely be fall – but can you tell us about the importance of that in the province? And while you’re doing that, premier, do we have the follow-up care that will be needed for that to succeed?

MOE: Yes. First, the Compassion Intervention Act is really a last line of offering a recovery opportunity to someone that has found themselves in a very, very dire situation. It’s a small number of people. This has been asked for by community leaders, Indigenous leaders, police chiefs across the province, but most importantly, families have asked for the opportunity to intervene in their loved one’s life when that loved one just isn’t in a place to to make a choice to enter a recovery lifestyle. And that is this government’s focus, to provide those recovery opportunities. We have 300 beds operating. We had committed to 500 recovery spaces. Those last 200 are funded in this year’s budget, and we’ll achieve that this fiscal year. So on the capacity issue for the Compassion Intervention Act, we’re actually building additional beds outside of that 500 to provide that care for that small number of individuals that maybe a family would refer if they have a loved one that is living just a terrible life of addictions and unable to make that decision on their own. The family can make a referral for that individual to take a try at a recovery lifestyle. And that’s the goal. And then, alongside that, we’re enhancing the number of police officers in all of our enforcement agencies, bringing all of our enforcement agencies together to work very closely together and giving them more tools, like the Street Weapons Act, where we can start to take these drugs off the street. This is going to be a sensitive line to walk, but it’s a very deliberate walk from the government, and our aspirational goal is to remove these poisonous drugs from Saskatchewan communities. That may be a difficult goal to achieve, but we certainly want to make Saskatchewan the most difficult place in Canada and North America in the world for someone to think about bringing these poisonous substances in that are killing our friends, killing our family members.

You, I know, are very positive in the news here this week, with this Bridger Pipeline that the United States has signed off on. There is an MOU for another pipeline between Alberta and the west coast. Haven’t seen that come to fruition. Despite that, Alberta separation talk is probably as loud as it’s ever been. What could Prime Minister Mark Carney do to prove that he respects, that he understands western Canada? Do you have a thought on that?

MOE: That discussion of challenges or alienation, and the talk of separation is not just in Alberta. I hear it in the rural areas of our province as well. There’s one thing Mark Carney can do in the immediate term that would start to at least show everyone in western Canada that he is listening, he is attentive, and he’s committed to collaboratively working – or collaborative federalism, working with the provinces on advancing our economic interests – and I’m bullish on the pipeline. I think all of the pipelines have an opportunity to move. However, what we need is an economic environment to produce the amount of oil that we are producing today, but also an economic environment where we can increase that level of oil. And I’m telling you, with west-coast pipelines, the Bridger Pipeline, Saskatchewan has a an opportunity to likely increase our oil production by at least 50 per cent in five years if we can have that economic operating environment that’s being negotiated right now with some of the refinement to the original MOU that Alberta and the federal government had signed. So if I had any message, and I’ve said this to the prime minister, it’s let’s get to an operating agreement there that works for the oil industry, works for western Canada, and works to bring our nation together to some degree.