Chinese trade provocation could make allies of Scott Moe, Trudeau Liberals yet

You have to hand it to the Chinese. They know exactly where to position the blade in the Achilles heel of Canadian politics.

Their latest provocation — the ludicrous allegation that canola grown on the western prairies is being dumped into the Chinese market — puts $5 billion in canola exports in jeopardy.

It’s a masterstroke by Beijing: Set Ottawa’s protection of a so-called burgeoning electric vehicle market in eastern Canada at cross-purposes with canola producers farming the western prairies. Then sit back and watch the partisan sparks. That the NDP has just ripped up its deal with the governing Liberals makes the political tinder even more susceptible to ignition.

And they know we know what they’re doing. Technically, it’s not political interference in Canadian politics, but it’s just as irritating. And memories can’t have faded; it’s only been two years since Beijing lifted the ban on canola exports by two of Canada’s largest exporters, immediately following the release of Huawei executive Meng Wenzhou.

I want to talk to someone who will call this what it is, so I reached out to Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.

Half of that canola is grown in his province and he’s a spirited kind of guy, especially when you threaten the prosperity of his 1.2 million constituents. (Canola oil is used as a healthy cooking oil and biofuel feedstock.)

I expect Moe will have something riveting to say about China’s latest antics and the pickle we’re in. The weaponization of food — in Canada’s case, it’s canola but they’ve done much the same in Australia with barley, France with cognac, the EU with pork and dairy — is straight out of China’s trade war playbook. Moe will know how to detorque the Chinese or Ottawa, or both.

Instead, he surprises me. He’s ready to play nice with the Trudeau government, to work alongside and in support of the feds. Moe hasn’t heard from Trudeau, “but I think it’s time for me to reach out,” he says. Huh, I think. But that’s what he really said.

There’s no doubt Moe recognizes the need to find a way through this mess, but, he assures me, “it isn’t going to be through a hurling of words back and forth between our Saskatchewan provincial government and the federal government.”

This 51-year-old Saskatchewan premier — born and raised on a Saskatchewan grain farm, a student of agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan, first elected to the Saskatchewan legislature in 2011 and going to the polls on Oct. 28 to seek the Saskatchewan Party’s fifth straight majority government — calmly defers to Ottawa for solutions.

“We have ample opportunity for that (trading barbs) on a number of topics where we disagree,” he continues. “We are going to find a way through this in the best interest of Saskatchewan farmers and Canadian farmers. It’s going to be by provinces working alongside the federal government and hopefully the federal government working alongside the provinces and listening to the provinces and finding a resolution.”

We’re having this conversation on the phone so the premier can’t see my jaw dropping. I can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s not joking; there isn’t a hint of sarcasm. Maybe, I think to myself, he’s so encouraged by the prospect of change in Ottawa, he’s already setting the stage for the way things ought to be.

You must be thrilled the next federal election will be a referendum on carbon tax, I observe. To my way of thinking, Moe’s tete-a-tete with Justin Trudeau on carbon tax — refusing to collect the tax on natural gas used to heat homes in Saskatchewan — is prescient. Moe affirms his belief the election will be a carbon tax election, and the only time he gloats, and then only a little, is to talk about how Saskatchewan has kept its inflation rate lower than the rest of Canada by refusing to collect the tax. He doesn’t need to convince me.

I grew up on a farm and empathize with the anxiety felt by canola producers being held to ransom. There’s a lot at stake, I remind Moe, rattling off the facts: Those bright yellow fields of canola, grown by 43,000 largely prairie farmers, yield about one-quarter of all farm crop receipts in Canada. China is Canada’s largest canola seed destination. Saskatchewan produces and exports roughly $8 billion worth of canola each year.

There’s no question Saskatchewan’s the province with the most to lose if this canola spat with China is allowed to fester and grow, he agrees. “It’s significant to Canada, of course, with $30 billion (in exports) to China,” he says, “$5 billion of that is canola, and of that, $2.5 billion comes from our province of Saskatchewan. So, we’re disproportionately impacted.”

I poke Moe a little harder on what the feds can do. “The federal government has a lot of things to consider right now,” Moe observes. “They’ve made some decisions that have precipitated this review.” And there are a lot of consequences, Moe suggests, across the country: “The Canadian government may find that the consequences of China’s actions are … too painful.” My goodness, he’s actually hinting at the possibility of Ottawa changing its mind.

Our first effort is to work with the federal government to support them in this engagement with China, Moe assures me, but expect the province to be working on its own as well. Saskatchewan exports to 160-plus countries and has provincial trade offices in close to a dozen of those countries, including China. While Indo-Canadian relations were challenged over the past few years — pretty self-induced, he adds — Saskatchewan was able to boost its trade with India through provincial channels.

There are other positives, Moe continues. “We’re crushing more canola seed into oil … Major new crushing capacity has been built, with more coming,” he reports, which means “China doesn’t have the same hammer lock on Canadian exports as it once did.” In addition to four existing major canola crush facilities in the province, there are two projects in development and two additional projects announced, positioning Saskatchewan to be able to crush roughly 75 per cent of the canola seeds into oil.

“When you find the ingredient chain, the value-add chain, and you start selling ingredients as opposed to raw agricultural products,” Moe points out, “it does change the conversation on market access and it changes the conversation on the value chain.”

As for the dark clouds casting a shadow over those fields of gold, the Saskatchewan premier isn’t despairing. Quite reasonably, and constructively, he is expecting solutions from Ottawa: “I don’t want to remind the federal government that Saskatchewan farmers are Canadians, and it is their duty to represent them as well.”

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