Scott Moe

Scott Moe (born July 31, 1973) is a Canadian politician serving as the 15th and current premier of Saskatchewan since February 2, 2018.

In the mid-1990s, while still attending university, Moe and his wife established a farming business, buying equipment and renting land.

During the 1990s Moe was charged on two occasions for impaired driving.

In 1992, Moe received a conviction for impaired driving while under the legal drinking age.

In 1994 Moe was again charged with impaired driving as well as leaving the scene of an accident.

The charges were ultimately stayed.

On May 29, 1997, Moe was responsible for an automobile collision that killed 39-year-old Joanne Balog, who was travelling in another vehicle.

Balog's 18-year-old son, Steve Balog, was the only other passenger and survived the collision with dislocated ribs and lacerations.

Moe later stated that he could not specifically recall the collision.

An RCMP investigation determined that Moe had attempted to cross the highway when it was unsafe and gave Moe a ticket for driving without due care and attention.

Moe has stated that alcohol was not a factor in the collision, and that the collision had shaped his life since.

By early 2000, Moe had filed for bankruptcy with $208,500 in assets and $320,900 in liabilities.

He has also owned gas stations and a pharmacy.

After the bankruptcy, Moe moved to Vermilion, Alberta, where he worked selling farm equipment.

He returned to Saskatchewan in 2003 and has worked in various community initiatives in and near Shellbrook including the Economic Development Corporation and the Shellbrook and District Physician Recruitment committee, which seeks to attract general practitioners to rural areas of the province without convenient access to local medical facilities.

He is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan for the riding of Rosthern-Shellbrook, first elected in 2011.

Moe was first elected to the Legislative Assembly as a Saskatchewan Party MLA for Rosthern-Shellbrook in the 2011 election.

Moe won the party nomination for the riding against an incumbent MLA, Denis Allchurch, who was seeking re-election.

Moe was appointed to the legislature's Standing Committee on Crown and Central Agencies and was deputy chair of the legislature's Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

He served in the Saskatchewan Party cabinet from 2014 to 2017 under the premiership of Brad Wall, twice as minister of environment and also as minister of advanced education.

Moe entered Cabinet on June 5, 2014, as Minister of Environment and Minister responsible for SaskWater and the Water Security Agency.

On May 21, 2015, he was appointed as Minister of Advanced Education.

Moe was re-elected in Rosthern-Shellbrook in the 2016 election and on August 23, 2016, Moe returned to his former role as Minister of Environment.

It was in this second stint on the Environment file that Moe first drew national attention.

On October 3, 2016, provincial Environment Ministers were meeting with Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna to work on a national agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

On the same day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government's plan to introduce a federal carbon tax for provinces that refused to implement their own.

Moe, along with his counterparts from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, walked out of their meeting with McKenna in protest, with Moe describing the federal government's actions as reminiscent of a 'national energy program 2.0.' This signaled the beginning of a long battle between Saskatchewan, and eventually a number of other provinces, and the federal government over the tax.

When an agreement was reached on a Pan-Canadian Framework for addressing climate change, Saskatchewan refused to sign because of the inclusion of carbon pricing, which meant the province left more than $60 million in federal funding on the table.

With the Saskatchewan Party falling in polls after forwarding a severe austerity budget in March 2017, Brad Wall announced in August of that year that he would be retiring, triggering a leadership race.

On September 1, 2017, after resigning from Cabinet, Moe formally launched an unexpected campaign for the leadership of the party with the backing of 21 cabinet and caucus members, primarily from rural Saskatchewan.

In January 2018 he was chosen to succeed Wall as leader of the Saskatchewan Party.

He led the party to a fourth consecutive majority mandate in the 2020 provincial election.

Since becoming Premier, Moe has consistently been ranked among the most popular first ministers in the country.

His tenure has been defined by an adversarial relationship with the federal government, including a failed court challenge against federal carbon pricing, and calls for a re-set to provincial-federal relations and expanded powers for the province, such as in the realms of policing and taxation.

Moe's time in office has also been defined by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Saskatchewan was one of the hardest hit provinces in Canada, Moe prioritized limiting public health measures throughout the pandemic, and twice made Saskatchewan the first province to lift its pandemic-related public health orders.

With the rise of new populist conservative parties in the province since he became premier, commentators have noted that Moe has increasingly adopted right-wing populist rhetoric.

Moe was born in Prince Albert, the eldest of five children, and raised on a farm near Shellbrook.

After high school he briefly moved to Yellowknife before returning to Saskatchewan and attending the University of Saskatchewan.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture.