Premier Scott Moe talks provincial backing for event centre projects on Evan Bray Show

A little over a week ago, Premier Scott Moe announced that the provincial government would match federal funding for three event centre projects around the province.

The three projects that could potentially receive the funding are the Downtown Event and Entertainment District in Saskatoon, the Prince Albert Convention and Cultural Centre and the Battlefords Arena and Event Centre. The costs would be divided amongst the levels of government, with municipal, provincial, and federal each paying a third.

Read more:

• Premier Scott Moe pushing Ottawa to help fund three event centre projects in Saskatchewan
• North Battleford unveils proposed site for $94M arena project
• Saskatoon City Council approves Muskeg Lake Cree Nation DEED negotiations
• Former arena CEO criticizes funding plan for Saskatoon’s downtown entertainment district

Moe joined The Evan Bray Show on Thursday to discuss the announcement.

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: Can you talk about why that you feel that’s an important priority for the province?

SCOTT MOE: There are three projects that were put forward under a federal program that has no provincial requirement for funding. It is a federal program. They are the priority of the municipalities, which is a stipulation for the province to even consider financial participation. And second, I would say that if we had an infrastructure program like an ISIP-related program, like we have had in years gone by, the province certainly – once it’s a priority of the provincial government and approved by the federal government – would put in their third when we have those structural programs. We don’t have one right now. We have three significant projects that are prioritized by the municipalities. They’ve applied to the federal government and have asked the province to participate. So in, really, an unprecedented way, the province has moved forward, understanding the importance of these projects to the municipality, to the community, to make the projects real and say “We will put in our third of the funding, contingent on the federal government putting in their third.” Now, each of the communities then have to have the discussion about their portion of the funding, which would be roughly a third as well, and whether that is the actual priority that community has moving forward.

So just to clarify – and I think you just stated this – if the federal funding doesn’t flow, then the provincial funding won’t either?

MOE: That would precipitate a different conversation. Where we are now, the provincial funding is contingent on the federal funding flowing, as each of these communities have applied to a federal program for roughly about a third of the funding.

Some people are critical of the province, saying “That’s a lot of money when we know there’s a lot of other priorities.” How do you make that decision, premier? How do we adjudicate on where prioritized spending should go, especially around projects like these?

MOE: We look to the municipalities for their priorities, and in Prince Albert, the Battlefords and in Saskatoon, this is the priority project that they’ve put forward to the federal government for an application to a federal grant that is in place, and then they have asked the province – which doesn’t have a requirement in this case – for a third of the funding. However, we did have a traditional infrastructure program under the Harper government. It was built in Canada. Under Trudeau – he who should not be named, I might say – it was the ISIP program. We don’t have that right now, but if we did, the province obviously would be in for a third for those municipal priority projects, whether it’s a water project, a wastewater project, whatever that might be. In this case, it’s three significant recreational centres in three large communities. We had a discussion about it and came to the conclusion that should the federal funding flow, the province would do their part to ensure that these projects can actually be realized.

I flipped through the provincial budget Minister Jim Reiter put forward in the spring of this year, and the theme of that budget was protecting Saskatchewan. And I know infrastructure was in there, but as I read through it, a lot of that infrastructure prioritized funding was more about water, wastewater, sewer, and building within the city. So is this budgeted money, or is this outside of what is budgeted?

MOE: This would be outside, and likely wouldn’t flow this year. It would flow over the next number of years as construction would start. As we know, the Saskatoon project might be a few years away before construction would begin. Prince Albert and North Battleford might begin sooner than that, and so the money would flow over the next number of years as construction has started, much like it does with the traditional infrastructure programs that they have. What we look to is the priorities of the municipal governments that are elected, and then how do we support those municipalities and what those priorities are. If we had the infrastructure program, this would be a much simpler conversation. I know SUMA, SARM, and others are pushing the federal government to bring in some type of long-term, flexible infrastructure funding so that we can address the municipal priorities that are out there, largely which are water, wastewater, those sorts of things. In this case, it’s three recreational centres, and it isn’t unprecedented for the province to participate, or the federal government. We did in Assiniboia, Moose Jaw, Melville. The stadium in Regina would be one outside of traditional infrastructure, probably more along the lines of what we’re doing here right now.

We only have limited number of ways in which we can bring money into the province. Taxation is one of them, but royalties are another one. We’ve recently been talking about it in the potash sector. How do we know, as a province, when we’ve struck the right balance? Have we struck that balance, and how often is it reviewed?

MOE: It’s reviewed annually, and I believe we have struck the balance on being competitive with the world and ensuring that we are also aware of the other assets, or other strengths, we have of investing in Saskatchewan. And we see that with investments in new potash mines. The second-largest project in Canada right now is a potash mine in Saskatchewan, but also investments in other mining sectors as well. We have two operating uranium mines today. We will be building two for sure, likely three, in the very near future. That’s significant, and that increase in production, going from about 30 per cent of global potash supply to 50 per cent, going from about 20 per cent of global uranium supply to about 30, 35 or 40 per cent, that is all going to have an impact on our revenues in years to come. So there is going to be significant growth in the Saskatchewan economy. Oil and gas is going to be the next investment that we see happening. That’s going to be tied to some nuclear conversations that we’ll have as we go into this fall. So the economy is going to continue to grow and really lead the nation when it comes to economic growth, and that is how we are going to balance the budget. Largely, our challenges in the budget this year are the investments that we’re making in two areas. One is health care – necessary and likely needs more – and two is community safety, addictions recovery and investing directly in our front-line enforcement agencies and police officers. And there, arguably, I think, needs to be more of that in the years ahead as well.

OK, let’s switch to U.S. trade. You were just down in Washington a week ago attending a funeral. While you were down there, you met with a number of U.S. officials. You also attended the funeral with (Canada-U.S. Trade Minister) Dominic LeBlanc. You’ve had the opportunity to get to know Mr. LeBlanc. Do we have the right people in place? For many of us, we don’t have the opportunity like you do to meet these individuals that are actually at the table trying to get a trade deal done. What’s your confidence level that we’re going to get there?

MOE: Well, I’m more confident today than I’ve been for a number of months. And yes, I was down. I attended the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral as part of the Canadian delegation. Actually, I talked with the prime minister when we were at the Council of Federation in Prince Edward Island about who from the federal government might be attending. Minister LeBlanc was at that meeting as well, so we agreed that I would go as part of the Canadian delegation with him and Ambassador Mark Wiseman on behalf of the province. Why we had a relationship with Senator Graham was quite simple. He talked to the president every week, and when you look at the trade challenges we have, they’re coming directly out of the White House, and we need to have Saskatchewan’s voice heard, not only through Ambassador Wiseman and those negotiations, but with all of the contacts that we have provincially, directly into the White House. So there was a level of respect of two decades of a relationship that this province, not me personally, but this province, has had, and the work that and the message that Senator Graham has carried to the White House for a number of years. We do have the right people in place, in my belief, for this period of time. I had the opportunity to spend some time with our negotiating crew. There’s Janice Charette, very detailed work that she’s done on behalf of the Government of Canada under the Harper administration and now the Carney administration. Ambassador Wiseman has a history in business and investment and understands business very well. I saw that front and centre. And obviously Minister LeBlanc, who has the ability to create relationships on all sides of the political spectrum. So if we can support that using our provincial contacts that we’ve developed over the last number of years from Saskatchewan’s perspective, and support and ensure that negotiating team is fully aware of the opportunities that Saskatchewan has to add to this conversation and to find a reviewed renewed CUSMA deal, that’s the goal. At the end of the day, the goal isn’t to counter-tariff and hurt Canadians even more than what we’re feeling today. And we do have some of those impacts in this province that are very real in the community of Big River right now, to be honest.

We recently heard the prime minister say while he was in Alberta that he wasn’t planning to use oil as leverage. But I’ve also heard the prime minister say, with regard to the tariff threats, we have options. I know he’s holding his cards close, but any thought on what this is going to look like as things intensify towards that Aug. 19 deadline?

MOE: Whether it’s oil, potash, uranium, those strategic resources, to withhold them or to put an export tariff on those, they are available in other areas of the world, and you put tens of thousands of Canadians out of work. So there isn’t going to be a prime minister that makes that choice, I don’t believe. There are other options, however, and a number that won’t be spoken about publicly. But I would also say there are other options, in particular when it comes to oil. Do we want to send another million or two million barrels to the western coast and provide it to the world and give our Canadian industry real opportunity, or do we want to continue to send that product south to the United States of America? I would suggest under normal circumstances we do both and produce more, and that’s Alberta’s value proposition. They want to produce a couple million more barrels of oil and employ more Canadians in that industry. I think we have the opportunity in this province in the next two to five years to actually, if not double, at least increase our oil production by about 50 per cent for all of the same reasons: opening up the global markets through a west coast pipeline, but also increasing the amount of oil that’s flowing to the United States of America. We’re doing the same in the uranium space, both in the U.S. and globally. And so within all of this, there is a strategic opportunity on the products that we’re going to produce and to have those at the negotiating table. And that is the discussions I had with Ambassador Wiseman and Janice Charette and Dominic LeBlanc.

Do you get any downtime in summer? This is actually supposed to be the break, or at least a bit of a break, for provincial politicians.

MOE: The last six months, since we were in China in January, have been likely the busiest six months since I’ve been elected, for good reason. There’s a lot of chaos and uncertainty in the world, but amongst all of that uncertainty, there’s some tremendous opportunities for our province. So we’ve been very, very busy the last six months and, unfortunately, some of it has been outside of this province. That being said, last weekend I got up to Missinipe for 48 hours with some high school friends, and we left some fish there, but we hammered them pretty good. It was a great weekend. The weather was good, and it was so nice just to be away for a few hours.