72 Facts About Scott Moe

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

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

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

Scott Moe led the party to a fifth consecutive majority government in the 2024 provincial election.

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

Scott Moe's 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.

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

Scott Moe graduated with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture.

Scott Moe 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scott 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.

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

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

On September 1,2017, after resigning from Cabinet, Scott 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.

Scott Moe defeated Alanna Koch, who had served as deputy minister to the Premier under Wall, and who held a narrow lead on each of the first four ballots.

Scott Moe was sworn in as Saskatchewan's 15th Premier and appointed his first Cabinet on February 2,2018.

Until 2020, Scott Moe consistently ranked at the top of the table as Canada's most popular premier.

Scott Moe's ranking dropped substantially in the summer of 2020 after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, this pandemic-related hit was short-lived, and in the summer of 2023 Scott Moe was tied as the most popular premier in the country, with Nova Scotia's Tim Houston.

Scott Moe led the Saskatchewan Party into the 2020 provincial election in October 2020.

Scott Moe had mused publicly about calling a snap election in the spring of 2020, but abandoned the idea with the onset of the COVID pandemic.

Scott Moe based his first campaign as leader on an economic recovery from the pandemic, including an avoidance of reinstating any business closures, and a promise to balance the provincial budget by 2024.

Scott Moe appealed to homeowners with promises of rebates on energy bills and a home renovation tax credit.

However, Scott Moe's majority was significantly reduced as the party was nearly swept from the major urban centres of Regina and Saskatoon, retaining just one Saskatoon seat by a margin of 136 votes as the Opposition NDP made large urban gains.

Scott Moe replaced the Ministry of the Economy with the Ministry of Trade and Export Development, and has undertaken international trade missions in the United States, China, India, Japan, and South Korea.

Scott Moe admitted that the economic recovery period from the pandemic was uncertain and therefore would no longer commit to a date for when the budget would be balanced.

Scott Moe continued his vocal opposition to carbon pricing when the federal government announced in December 2020 that the federal tax would be increasing to $170 per tonne by the year 2030, reiterating that the scheme is unconstitutional despite the pending Supreme Court decision.

Scott Moe re-opened the debate over the carbon tax in November 2023, after the federal government provided a limited exemption for home-heating oil; Scott Moe charged that it was unfair to exempt certain heating source and not others, and ultimately introduced a law meant to enable the province's utilities to stop remitting the federal tax on natural gas bills.

Scott Moe later extended this to electric home heating as well.

Scott Moe has based his approach to climate and environment on technology like carbon capture and storage and on agriculture.

Scott Moe has been a staunch advocate for the building of new pipelines, and in February 2020 he formed a cabinet committee tasked with assessing how the government could help the cause.

Scott Moe further stated that he would explore how Saskatchewan could gain more control over taxation and immigration, citing Quebec's unique powers in these areas as an example.

Scott Moe has criticized federal firearms legislation, and in anticipation of a provision allowing cities to ban handguns, Scott Moe's government passed its own legislation banning municipalities from setting independent gun laws.

Scott Moe again referenced Quebec's relationship with the federal government and suggested that Saskatchewan should be considered a "nation within a nation," seeking more autonomy including in areas such as taxation and policing.

The tenets of the white paper were ultimately enshrined in legislation when Scott Moe's government introduced and passed the Saskatchewan First Act, a bill meant to "confirm" the province's autonomy and exclusive jurisdiction over natural resources.

Scott Moe refused to meet with the organizer of what was dubbed the "Walking With Our Angels" camp, Tristen Durocher, and the government filed a court case to evict the camp for violating park bylaws.

Scott Moe continued to call the camp illegal despite the decision, and he did not meet with Durocher before his 44-day protest ended.

Opposition leader Ryan Meili called for an all-party committee, including medical and economic experts, to be formed to handle the emerging pandemic, but Scott Moe rejected the overture.

The province introduced new public health measures during this second wave, but Scott Moe persistently rejected calls for a short-term closure of businesses, opting to keep most establishments open at reduced capacities, even as some businesses argued that they would benefit from a stricter approach.

Scott Moe's popularity began to wane as a result, and he was criticized for his handling of the second wave.

Scott Moe was further criticized for unusually long adjournments of the Legislature during the pandemic, and accused of avoiding democratic accountability.

On March 9,2021, Scott Moe moved to ease public health restrictions as cases trended downwards.

Scott Moe publicly rejected these requests, stating that it would be "grossly unfair" to vaccinated people to reinstate public health measures.

Scott Moe was criticized both for waiting too long to introduce the measures and for refusing accountability for having lifted all measures approximately two months prior.

In January 2022, with cases in the province surging to new heights in a fifth wave, Scott Moe resisted calls for increased public health measures, rejecting gathering limits as more harmful than helpful despite repeated public recommendations by the chief medical health officer to avoid non-essential gatherings.

Scott Moe stated without evidence on numerous occasions that gathering limits were proving ineffective against the omicron variant in other provinces.

On January 13,2022, Scott Moe announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 on an at-home Rapid antigen test.

Scott Moe stated that he was asymptomatic but would be isolating for five days.

Scott Moe then recalled the Legislature two weeks early in October 2023, in a move to pass the legislation, entitled the Parents' Bill of Rights, as quickly as possible.

The projects, which were reviewed by Scott Moe, were later found to have illegally cultivated protected grasslands and involved building irrigation infrastructure into a river without obtaining the proper licensing permits.

Scott Moe was removed from the Saskatchewan Party caucus by then-premier Brad Wall over the matter, and eventually resigned his position as MLA.

Steve Balog, who was injured in the crash, claimed that he only learned that Scott Moe was the at-fault driver in the incident when the Premier was asked about the crash by the media during the election campaign, as the police did not disclose his identity at the time of the crash.

Steve Balog criticized Scott Moe for "flip-flopping" after he had suggested publicly that he would be reaching out to the Balogs.

In January 2021, after the executive committee for Regina's City Council adopted an amendment to its sponsorship policy that may have restricted the ability for some energy companies to advertise on City buildings and at City events, Scott Moe released a statement threatening to withhold municipal surcharges from Crown energy companies SaskPower and SaskEnergy if City Council didn't reject the amendment.

Scott Moe's comments were criticized by Regina city councilors and the Municipalities of Saskatchewan for infringing on the city government's autonomy.

In February 2021, Scott Moe sparked controversy when he suggested that those calling for stricter measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic were those able to work from home.

Scott Moe's comments drew particular criticism from health care workers, many of whom have persistently called for stricter measures.

In December 2021, Scott Moe was criticized for phoning and engaging in an hour-long conversation with Nadine Ness, the head of the group "Unified Grassroots," known for its opposition to public health measures and its links to protests at hospitals and COVID conspiracy theories.

In January 2022, Scott Moe dismissed a peer-reviewed study from the Royal Society of Canada regarding excess mortality in Canada during the pandemic as "some of the most egregious misinformation" of the pandemic.

Scott Moe was widely criticized for this characterization of the study.

Scott Moe stirred further controversy in January 2022 by writing a letter in support of the Freedom Convoy protest seeking to end all COVID-related public health measures in Canada.

Scott Moe was the only Premier thanked in a news conference by convoy organizers.

In October 2023, the Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers' Association criticized Scott Moe for characterizing an injunction against the policy as "judicial overreach".

Scott Moe claimed he was unaware Clarke's children were the subject of the complaint.

Scott Moe is married to Krista Scott Moe and the couple have two children.