It’s fair to say that there were few MLAs in the legislature more delighted with the 2015 budget than Battlefords MLA Herb Cox.
News the budget included $129 million towards construction of the integrated Saskatchewan Hospital and corrections facility was the highlight of the budget speech for Cox, who spoke to the News-Optimist from Regina.
“I think we’re the big winners in the budget,” said Cox Wednesday, referring to the “$129 million that was announced to begin the construction of our Saskatchewan Hospital, which is a long-awaited announcement.”
“Now it’s a budget item, a line item. You know, we’ve had advance funds before – $8 million in previous budgets, for the advance planning. This funding is actually going toward the tendering of the construction.”
The next steps in the process towards construction are for the requests for proposals to come back and a tender selected, with three groups bidding on the project.
“The ministry will take a look at that and decide which is the best way to go, which is the best value for our money, and then they will make a decision and proceed from there.”
Beyond that, there was more than just the budget that cheered Cox. Cox pointed to news from that morning that Saskatchewan’s population had grown by another 17,000 people in 2014.
He pointed to the diversified economy as a positive, noting that despite the $661 million hit on the oil revenue side, they picked up revenue on the potash side and in other areas.
“We ended up with 1.2 per cent more revenue than last year, and we were able to hold our expense side by that exact amount of 1.2 per cent by tightening our belts. I think that 10 of our ministries combined ended up with .6 per cent less expenditures this year than last year and I think that’s phenomenal.”
Cox noted the government has not cut back on their capital expenditures.
“We have to keep the province moving forward. That’s always been a priority of this government – in order to keep Saskatchewan strong, we have to keep investing in infrastructure.”
As for the rationale to build projects now under the Sask Builds Capital Plan as opposed to waiting, Cox said “we looked at that long and hard.
“We can borrow money at today’s interest rates, which are lower than they’ve ever been before. And you weigh the options – do you build now and keep your economy strong, keep the province growing? Or do you take a chance of slowing that down, waiting, and building these projects and the cost of building as you know rises every year. And so the decision was made that, yes, it’s better off to spend our money now and keep the province growing rather than wait and perhaps spend more money in the future to do the same projects.”
Cox also was pleased with the government’s honouring its commitment to municipal revenue sharing tied to one per cent of the PST, saying “had we cut that back then the towns and cities and municipalities would have had to increase their property taxes to balance their own budgets.”
Overall, Cox talked about the atmosphere in the legislature for what is the final budget for Finance Minister Ken Krawetz, who is not seeking re-election.
“Minister Krawetz is a completely passionate man about his job, so amazingly knowledgeable about the whole aspect of the finance minister, and I’m sure it’s an emotional time for him and his family,” said Cox. “He’s definitely someone we’re going to miss.”
Krawetz will be in North Battleford at the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce on March 30 for the annual Post-Budget Breakfast presentation in the community.
