Regina – On Sept. 9, the Government of Saskatchewan announced the distribution of $70.3 million, part of the federal Safe Restart Canada Plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NDP Finance Critic Trent Wotherspoon responded by saying, “The federal dollars will be certainly well-received, in consultation with municipalities across the province to ensure that the, that we fully understand the pressures they're facing right now and the adequacy of the supports that they have extended provincially and federally but certainly these federal dollars are important.”
He re-iterated a point the NDP has continually made in recent months regarding the application of the provincial sales tax on construction labour, saying, “The call that we continue to make on the provincial government is that it makes no sense to be having municipalities subject to the PST on construction labour. We need to maximize value out of precious tax dollars. At this time, and when municipalities are building new municipal infrastructure projects, it makes no sense at all that you're using hard earned property tax dollars paid by property tax payers to pay the PST to the provincial government.”
