Federal minister compares Sask. premier to Donald Trump following pause of industrial carbon tax

WATCH: Premier Scott Moe was briefed by Mark Carney following the PM’s conversation with U.S President Donald Trump. Wayne Mantyka reports.

A federal minister isn’t pleased with Saskatchewan’s decision to pause its industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, leading to a comparison between Premier Scott Moe and U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Just like Donald Trump, Pierre Poilievre and Scott Moe think big polluters should get a free pass and everyday Canadians should pay the price,” Federal Energy and Resources Minister Johnathan Wilkinson said in a post on X.

Wilkinson added that in 2025, industrial carbon pricing is tied to more than 70 major projects and worth more than $57 billion.

“It’s a fact that industrial carbon pricing reduces emissions, increases investment certainty and catalyzes projects to create good jobs,” Wilkinson said.

On Friday, Moe fired back on his own X account, saying that “when it comes to the Liberals defending western Canadians and our industries it’s elbows down, taxes up,” referring to the “elbows up” saying that’s become a symbol of newly-strained Canada/U.S. relations.

Moe also told CTV News firsthand that he did not appreciate Wilkinson’s remarks.

“What our Liberal minister of energy has done is go out and compare me to Donald Trump, I am not Donald Trump and [he] has also called our industries, which are the most sustainable in the world, big polluters. We don’t appreciate the actual minister of energy, nationally, referring to Saskatchewan industries that are producing the most sustainable products you can find on earth, of their kind, big polluters,” Moe said.

After Moe announced the removal of the industrial carbon tax, the Saskatchewan NDP immediately pointed out the $431 million hole that is now expected to be left in the recent provincial budget, one the Sask. Party said had a small $12 million surplus projection.

However, Moe said that cutting the province’s industrial carbon levy will not affect budget projections and called the revenue from the tax immaterial.

“The members opposite have been claiming they’ve been asking for affordability measures, they’ve been asking for support for industry in the face of all these tariffs that’s what the announcement on the [pause of] the carbon tax did today,” Finance Minister Jim Reiter said during Question Period this week.

Moe said the revenue from the tax was earmarked for innovation funds and development of small modular reactors and added that the province will consult with affected industries on the removal of the tax.

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A federal backstop program is in place to kick in when a province ends its own industrial carbon tax, but there has been no formal announcement as of Friday from Ottawa on how that applies here.

Saskatchewan has said that if the federal government imposed an industrial carbon tax on the province, it would challenge the move.

The province’s industrial carbon tax was run through the Output-Based Performance Standards Program commonly referred to as OBPS.

Moe said the decision to pause the tax was partly motivated by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s move to reduce the federal consumer carbon tax to zero.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to remove the federal industrial carbon tax if elected in April.

Despite Wilkinson’s comparison, Moe has been adamant that Canada will never become the 51st state and has denounced tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.