Saskatchewan budget

Budget 2010: Promises Deferred, Future Ignored
March 24, 2010
REGINA - Saskatchewan Liberal Leader Ryan Bater called the 2010 Saskatchewan Party budget damage control at its worst. “The Saskatchewan Party is clearly floundering in this budget,” said Bater, “and while in crisis mode this government has mortgaged our future and targeted First Peoples as the victims of their repeated fiscal mismanagement.”

“For starters, the budget is not balanced and debt is on the rise. There is an operating deficit of $175 million and they are using the Financial Growth and Security Fund to hide it. Even worse, public debt is forecast to rise over the next three years. Debt elimination should be a priority for any government that truly believes in our economic freedom in the future, but this government is content to rest on their laurels from the token debt payments they’ve made in recent years.”

“Second, there is very little belt tightening. They have only reduced spending by 1% from last year- which means this government has still increased spending by a whopping 20% since taking office. This is still unsustainable and after last year’s fiscal disaster they have made last minute desperate cuts to the civil service. These cuts were made haphazardly without the Sask Party government having done a value-for-money audit first. The use of attrition as the means to make these cuts has robbed Saskatchewan of the next generation of talent in our professional civil service.”

“Saskatchewan has no greater priority than to ensure the full participation of First Nations and Métis people in our economy. We urgently need a real push for aboriginal economic development with the start up and expansion of small businesses and entrepreneurship. Instead, the Sask Party eliminated the critical Aboriginal Employment Development Program and has allowed the First Nations and Metis Business Development Program to fade away.”

“Worst of all, their targeting of tobacco on reserve land is a further depletion of Treaty Rights that the government has no jurisdiction over. This is nothing more than a tax grab by a government that is desperately trying to hide its own fiscal mismanagement and incompetence.”