REGINA, Sask. — Saskatchewan’s NDP is calling for an emergency legislative recall and a suspension of the provincial fuel tax amid tariff-related pressures and rising transportation costs. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney outlines the next steps for the Pacific Link pipeline, newly designated a project of national interest.
Podcasts are available now on GX94, Yorkton, or on 620 CKRM, Regina, hosted by Steven Wilson. Or read the transcript below:
Craig Reid — Welcome to Trade Dispute: Impact on the Prairies. I'm Craig Reed in Saskatchewan. With the ongoing tariff issues, the opposition NDP are calling for the legislature to be recalled in order to help affected businesses deal with the fallout. The NDP says the situation has escalated since the end of the spring session, and immediate action is needed in terms of assistance measures.
Among those businesses affected are motorcycle dealerships, with Canada having imposed a 50 per cent counter tariff on American-made bikes, which make up a large portion of motorcycles sold in the province.
The NDP is also calling on Premier Scott Moe's government to suspend the province's 15 cent per litre fuel tax, arguing families are struggling with rising costs while other provinces move to provide relief at the pumps. Jobs and and shadow Economy Minister Alannah Young made the call in Yorkton on Oct. 1, where gasoline prices reached about $1.79 per litre last week. Young said suspending the provincial fuel tax would provide immediate relief for households, farmers and small businesses facing higher transportation costs.
The NDP noted Prince Edward Island suspended its fuel tax last weekend, while Alberta moved to suspend its fuel tax as well. Young argued Saskatchewan should follow suit, particularly as the province benefits from higher than expected resource revenues.
MLAs are scheduled to return to the legislature at the end of the month to open up the fall session, and as we told you last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith were in Fort McMurray, Alta., on Thursday to unveil the Pacific Link pipeline project, which would extend from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, as the first project of national interest under the Prime Minister's Building Canada Act. While in Fort McMurray to promote the announcement, the Prime Minister made a stop at our Harvard Media studio there, where he sat down for a conversation with Jon Tupper to discuss the Pacific Link Project.
Jon Tupper — You just got back from announcing that the now called Pacific Link Pipeline is a matter of national interest. That's supposed to be a one million barrel per day pipeline taking up oil ultimately from the oil sands off to the West coast. Bill C 39, the Building Canada Act is one project, one review, one year. Can you walk us through the specific steps of what's next for this pipeline approval?
Prime Minister Mark Carney — Well thanks, John. Yeah. I mean, this is a big day. It's a big day for Fort McMurray. Big day for Alberta, for Canada and for our partners, partners in Asia who will benefit from the Pacific Link pipeline when it's built. Um, just to be clear, though, about the legislative side, this actually operates on something that was passed by Parliament a little over a year ago, was the first big piece of legislation my government put in place, called the Building Canada Act. And what that does is we have to make a determination as a government, what's a project, big projects, that are in the national interest. So they have to make Canada more independent, provide benefits like that. They have to provide big economic benefits. They have to advance the interests of Indigenous peoples, be aligned with our climate objectives and they have to be able to get done. So you need people that can execute the projects as well. And so we've taken a judgment about the Pacific Link pipeline based on look, we've had over 101 hundred consultations with Indigenous peoples to get to this point. We've looked at the economics of it, clearly exporting a million barrels a day to Asian markets. It's going to help with the price differential. It's going to diversify away from the United States. All these things in Canada's interest. Hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits to governments and and hundreds of thousands of jobs, all of that wrapped together. We make the call. This is a project of national interest. It's listed. And what that does is it tells the people that would build this project, um, Trans Mountain and Pembina, uh, that now do the real heavy lifting of the work of and you're familiar with a lot of this in terms of the detailed costing, lining up the equipment, lining up the world will need to be done. We'll do those in partnership with the province of Alberta, with the province of British Columbia, with Indigenous groups, with environmental groups to get all this information, get to the right decision once. Have that focus. No duplicative processes. Get everybody rowing in the same direction, so we can take a final package of conditions for the project to move ahead. And by this time next year, in fact, by the start of September next year, we are looking to have all those conditions in place. So it's an exciting time. Lots of work to get here. Lots more work to do to get to that point and then get shovels in the ground and make Canada more independent, stronger and better.
Jon Tupper — And let's talk about that. When would you give a best case scenario for shovels in the ground on this?
Prime Minister Mark Carney — Well, look, with the conditions in place then it becomes an operational question of whether you start in the, in the in the months just after that early 2028. I mean, it's literally. That's what we look to line up. And that's one thing that the project proponents are going to determine, right. When can they get the equipment in place, when can they get the workers in place in order to move that forward? Again, lots of things to be done. But, uh, a very, very clear decision taken today that this project is going to move forward.
Jon Tupper — With the previous pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline. Now, it operated in a very different capacity, but it ran up against roadblocks at every turn. Whether it's a legal challenges that were just simply designed to obstruct, to get in the way, to delay, to overcast it. Which is why I believe TransCanada energy backed away from the project. What do you see this project doing? I mean, obviously the courts are independent, but what are you going to do to ensure that there's not that obstructionist agenda?
Prime Minister Mark Carney — Well, we're doing several things. One, you learn from those processes. And so there's the experience of that. You get things right. Secondly, we have the very clear legislative framework. Parliament has spoken. Parliament has passed the arrangements for this. Thirdly, the change here is we're getting people involved at the start. One of the issues with big projects that can be a big mining project, a big project like this, is the consultations with stakeholders, particularly with Indigenous groups, the whole thing. And then the consultation begins. Well, that's not really a consultation here. We're turning the process around. We're getting an assessment of whether something is so valuable in many respects to Alberta, to Canada, to Indigenous Canadians that it should go ahead. Then we co-develop the environmental standards, the economic arrangements, very important economic arrangements around this. Plus, at the same time, the proponents, the people who are going to build it are working through very serious and important technical aspects of it, the engineering aspects of it, and lining up all of the logistics, the equipment, the workers, so the thing can get built. That's a step. That's a total change, a paradigm change in how we get these projects built. And you know what? The world's excited about it, about it because it means that we are building big things again in this country. It's a very clear message. If Canadians want something built, Canada will get it built.
Craig Reid — That was Prime Minister Mark Carney in conversation with Harvard Media's Jon Tupper in our Fort McMurray studio. We'll have more with the prime minister this week as he discusses foreign investment, as well as the uranium and energy industries in the prairies as well. We’ll have the latest on any new developments. I'm Craig Reid. Have a great day and thank you for listening to Trade Dispute: Impact on the Prairies.
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