Sask. Premier Scott Moe on 2023 and what's to come in the new year

It was a divisive year in Saskatchewan politics.

With 2023 drawing to a close, CBC Saskatchewan's provincial affairs reporter Adam Hunter sat down with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe to talk about some of the things that made headlines in the province this year.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Adam Hunter: I know that you recently got back from Dubai. Your government paid to make that trip and set up a pavilion there. Why did you think it was necessary to have that sort of a set-up and to have a presence like that at COP?

Scott Moe: I would say it was well worth the investment.

It provided our industries and people that are employed in Saskatchewan industries — mining, in the agriculture industry, in the oil industry as well — the opportunity to not only talk about what we are producing, and how we are providing over 150 countries around the world that opportunity to aspire to the food security and energy security goals that they do aspire to, but give us the opportunity to talk about how we are actually producing it from an environmental perspective, specifically from a carbon intensity perspective.

It's something that we, in the whole conversation around climate change and sustainable production, lose at times — that we are producing, in this province, some of the — if not the most — sustainable products of its kind on Earth.

It's likely not an investment that we would have the opportunity to make each and every year at COP. We would consider it again, but it's not an every year thing.

When it comes to climate change, what are some of your concerns about the future and its effects on the province and also on the economy? 

My concerns actually revolve around unrealistic policy. There is a transition that is happening globally and it's happening here in Saskatchewan as well, and I understand some of the initiatives that are being brought forward by, in our case in the federal government in Canada, I understand what the end goal is.

What bothers me, and I think what concerns me as a sub-national leader, is the unrealistic regulations that are coming into place in the meantime that are designed not to in any way lower emissions in certain industries, but are actually designed to push those industries out.

When you consider that some of those industries are the most sustainable in the world, that means that the world is going to be using a dirtier product in the future.

In just a matter of months, the province's budget projections went from a billion dollar surplus to a deficit. Why was the forecast off and is that a concern, that you could have such a wild swing like that?

It's not the first time we've seen that in Saskatchewan.