There were not too many complaints from those attending this year’s Battlefords Chamber event about the budget handed down by Finance Minister Donna Harpauer.
The audience attending the annual post-budget address on Friday generally welcomed the balanced budget that was delivered a week earlier. In speaking to reporters afterwards, Harpauer indicated the local reaction seemed to mirror what she heard elsewhere.
“There is a lot of appreciation that we kept the promise to balance the budget,” said Harpauer, “and that the path that we set three budgets ago is what it took to come to balance, because there were difficult decisions that were made when revenues were down.”
Those in attendance also welcomed a major funding boost to North Battleford announced earlier in the week, when both the province and the federal government announced their one-third contributions toward a major $13.6 storm sewer project for the city.
Mayor Ryan Bater particularly thanked the finance minister for the province’s funding for that project. But Bater also asked the finance minister about another issue: cannabis sales, and whether the province had done any forecasting on potential revenues coming to Saskatchewan.
Harpauer noted they were forecasting $5.39 million in revenue. $1.97 million was PST and $3.42 million was from the federal excise tax. In the third quarter, they are forecasting an intake of $1.4 million.
“It isn’t the big cash cow that I think it was first thought that it might be,” Harpauer said. It was also not the huge cost yet that municipal police forces thought it would be either.
Earlier this year, SUMA had passed a resolution calling for a cannabis excise tax sharing agreement with municipalities. But in speaking to reporters afterwards, Harpauer made known there was not likely to be a separate “one-off” cannabis revenue stream to municipalities. Instead, she pointed to the municipal revenue sharing calculated at three-quarters of PST as predictable for both levels of government.
“We don’t do one-offs for alcohol sales, we don’t do one-offs for other sales. I don’t foresee us doing one-offs for this sale either.”
The impact of the PST on restaurant meals and construction was also raised. The opposition has tried to make the case that PST has been the reason why construction is down but Harpauer said the PST hasn’t been the main driver of that.
“The federal government’s changes in the mortgage rules have had a large part to play in why housing is down,” said Harpauer. “Housing sales are down because they’ve shut out homebuyers.”
She is waiting to see whether recent changes to those rules will work to get the market stimulated once again.
As for other construction projects, “there has been a bit of a slowdown but largely because the government hasn’t been investing in infrastructure. So, they are going to very much welcome the infrastructure investment that we have in this budget.”
The coming imposition of the federal carbon tax was also raised, taking effect April 1.
“It’s not a joke and I’ve gotten more phone calls than ever this time of year because it’s right here” was the reaction from Battlefords Chamber chair Dallan Oberg.
Harpauer took the opportunity to criticize the “federally imposed Justin Trudeau carbon tax” in her remarks, noting there was still many details they didn’t know, including what was exempt.
“It’s a tax, that all it is, it will do nothing to reduce emissions,” said Harpauer.
A ruling on Saskatchewan’s court filing against the carbon tax is also still to be handed down.
Harpauer did point out the province now has a growing number of allies in the fight against the carbon tax, pointing to Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. “It will be interesting to see after the Alberta election if we are five provinces strong against the carbon tax,” she said.
