The opposition NDP have taken to using the words ‘off balance’ to describe the provincial budget.
Opposition finance critic Trent Wotherspoon used those words often as he condemned the budget in remarks in the legislature Wednesday afternoon.
“Mr. Speaker, because Saskatchewan families and people of this province won’t see themselves, their priorities, or their future reflected in this budget, because it’s off balance, because we owe it to the people of this province to step up to the challenges of today and ensure that better tomorrow awaits, we as an official opposition cannot support this budget,” Wotherspoon said. “This is a budget that triples the debt, that doubles the PST, that flattens the economy and fails to deliver for students who desperately need supports.”
In a conference call with media Thursday, both Wotherspoon and opposition leader Ryan Meili further expressed their disappointment.
The budget “came down with a lot of fanfare, a whole lot of ‘mission accomplished’ language that somehow this is a balanced budget,” said Meili.
“We find it a bit hard to take all of that self-congratulation, when we see that they increased the provincial debt by $1.8 billion dollars.”
The amount of debt was equivalent to leaving “each person in Saskatchewan with a $22,000 bill. That’s how far this government is putting us into debt.”
Meili also said the budget fails to “balance the priorities” in the province and particularly noted a “big miss” in education.
“Education was cut deeply in 2017, and even though there was a small increase it didn’t get back up to those levels,” said Meili. The numbers didn’t even keep up with inflation, he said. Meili also lamented cuts to post-secondary education.
“If you want a weak economy a decade from now, the best thing you can do is cut education and this government is failing to invest.”
Meili also mentioned the “failure to do anything about the PST, or really any measures to help people who are struggling to make ends meet in an economy where people are still out of work … we’re seeing the results with people unable to pay their property tax, unable to pay their mortgage, unable to pay their utility bills. People are struggling.”
Wotherspoon said the budget was “out of line with the priorities of Saskatchewan.” He also took further aim at the PST.
“In the government’s own budget documents it’s clear that the average Saskatchewan household is paying $778 more in just four years with the PST. That’s a 70 per cent increase and that’s hard. That’s a hard hit on households.”
One of the questions posed by reporters was why the NDP didn’t present their own “opposition budget.”
The reason they’ve never done an alternative budget, Meili said, was partly because a lot of the numbers aren’t shared with them.
“That’s one of the big frustrations. You think when you’re elected you’re going to have access to all the information but this government hides everything it possibly can.”
Even within the budget document, “there’s a lot of missing information that we’re going to have to keep going after and after,” said Meili.
The NDP did take credit for movement on one item in the budget – the movement towards some more funding towards mental health supports. That was something the NDP had pushed hardest for, Meili said.
“We’ve been talking about mental health in Saskatchewan for quite a while,” said Meili.
Everywhere, he said, people were highlighting the number of people struggling with depression and anxiety and also with addictions, pointing to opioids and crystal meth.
“This has left no community unscathed. This is why we have been pushing mental health investment really hard. That’s why we named Danielle Chartier the first mental health and addictions critic in the province’s history to really highlight that focus, and we brought people in to the legislature to keep raising the issue.
“So we were happy to see that the government took that part of the way. We saw an investment of about $15 million in mental health outside of Sask. Hospital, and about $9 million of that was provincial dollars so we see some increase. We’re still at the back of the pack in terms of funding dollars compared to other provinces and in terms of having a larger strategy to deal with the addictions side of things, and the drug problem in our communities, to deal with suicide prevention, to make sure we’ve got the full spectrum of care from prevention of mental illness to early treatment and primary care, to having the crisis services available throughout the province so that when somebody is in a bad moment, or is ready to ask for help, that they’re not told to come back weeks or months later, that they get the help when they need it.”
