A day after the release of Manitoba’s budget, our Saskatchewan neighbours released their own provincial budget. When one compares the level of spending in the two documents, they’re like night and day. The comparison also makes one wish the Saskatchewan crew had helped out on Manitoba's spending plans.
First off, Manitoba’s budget includes four more years of deficit financing, despite the fact that the recession is behind us. Over the next four years, the gang on Broadway will rack up over $1.5 billion in new debt.
If you’re wondering how the Manitoba government can run four straight years of deficits given our province’s balanced budget legislation, the answer is, they can’t. If it wasn’t bad enough that Premier Doer and his crew took a machete to the legislation two years ago, and shot it up with a rocket launcher last year, this year the Selinger government will essentially drive a tank over the tattered document. When they’re done pillaging the act through amendments, fiscal responsibility will no longer be a part of it.
It’s a shame really. The original legislation helped ensure governments spent like responsible families. Just as no family would go out and buy a new Corvette if one of its breadwinners were laid off, the legislation essentially made sure a government wouldn’t either.
Instead, the government has done anything but control spending. Their own budget documents show that spending is up 5.3 per cent over last year’s budget; approximately nine times our province’s 0.6 per cent inflation rate. By contrast, our Saskatchewan neighbours are increasing spending by 0.001 per cent over last year's levels - talk about belt-tightening.
Despite the slowdown, luxury projects continue abound in Manitoba; $31 million for a new polar bear house in Winnipeg, an extra $1 billion for the west side Bipole 3 boondoggle, a $260 million loan to a U.S. wind power company, $3 million for Greyhound, $16 million in subsidies for movies filmed in the province, potentially more provincial funds for the human rights museum (even though it’s a federal museum) and at least a $100 million contribution for a water plant to remove nitrogen from Winnipeg’s sewage system despite scientists questioning the science behind the decision.
The fundamental problem is the Manitoba government has been spending like drunken sailors for the past decade and doesn’t know how to turn off the taps now that the well has run dry. There’s no federal bailout to help them and because wealthy provinces are struggling, they’ll give us less this year in handouts known as “equalization payments.”
In addition to cuts in almost every department, the Sask government is reducing their bureaucracy by 1,800 positions over four years and are even cancelling their state run TV channel.
It wasn’t all cuts, they’re reallocating more resources to health care and universities. In other words, they’re trimming government fat, but are continuing to support the services most citizens expect from government.
Sure, the Saskatchewan government’s budget isn’t perfect. After all, their ‘balanced budget’ is actually a deficit and the cuts could have been deeper. But at the end of the day, they deserve credit for rolling up their sleeves and making tough choices; something Premier Selinger and his government largely ignored.
Colin Craig
Prairie Director
