On Thursday, April 26 in the legislature, Battlefords MLA Herb Cox gave extensive remarks about a motion by Kelvington-Wadena MLA Hugh Nerlien, which called on the assembly to reject “the NDP’s plan to increase spending by over $2.5 billion, as it would leave Saskatchewan with an extreme deficit and increase the debt for future generations.”
Cox proceeded to shred the NDP plans, focusing on areas of interest to him. Here are Cox’s remarks as recorded in Hansard, starting with his comments on advanced education, a topic he was familiar with from his most recent stint in cabinet handling the file.
Mr. Cox: —… One of the first things that is outlined there that caught my attention, Mr. Speaker, was reverse the cuts made to our post-secondary partners.
… Mr. Speaker, … there’s been really no concrete numbers proposed in this plan, in this campaign platform. No way to pay for it. No itemized costs, Mr. Speaker. So we’re going to have to make some assumptions. But I think in this situation we could assume that restoring funding would be about $44 million. But, Mr. Speaker, let’s do a little comparison here, and some days, Mr. Speaker, I think hypocrisy seems to abound in this hallowed Chamber, but I’ll just talk a little bit about tuition rates here.
Since ’14-15 budget, under this government, Mr. Speaker, tuition rates have risen by an average of four per cent at our universities, and only once during that period of time was it higher than four per cent, at 4.3 per cent. Now, Mr. Speaker, let’s compare that to what happened under the dark days of that NDP government. And he talks about stable tuition rates in this platform. Mr. Speaker, from ’90-91 to ’06-07, our undergraduate tuition rates at both of our universities … went up by a staggering 227 per cent, Mr. Speaker. At Sask Poly, which was then SIAST … at that time, it was even worse. It went up by . . . Tuition rates rose in that period of time by 320 per cent.
On the grad retention program:
This campaign plan, this plan also proposes that we would throw out the grad retention program. Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that our grad retention program was one of the most substantial and the most successful in anywhere in the country. And if he wants to take this plan, this idea to 70,000 grads who have taken advantage of this program and have accessed $406 million in tax savings in order to stay here in the province and work in the province, I think they would have some strong messages for him with that plan…
On the College of Medicine:
Mr. Speaker, this platform, this plan talks about a stable cash flow for our College of Medicine, Mr. Speaker.
… And yes, they have had accreditation problems in the past, and they have now resolved them. But at their most recent accreditation review, which was late last fall, they came to us in mid-year, in summertime, and requested $20 million to help meet those accreditation review. We reviewed their request, Mr. Speaker, and we were happy to be able to provide $20 million in funding. That was on top of the $67 million that was already in the ’17-18 budget, Mr. Speaker, and again this year in our ’18-19 budget we have allotted $89 million for the College of Medicine. Mr. Speaker, that’s stable funding.
On agriculture:
Mr. Speaker, this plan … also goes on to make many suggestions for our farmers and our agriculture industry in this province, things like encourage fuel-efficient machinery, fuel-efficient purchases of tractors and combines. Well I happen to know a lot of farmers in this province, Mr. Speaker, and I don’t think there’s a one of them that would go out and buy a tractor that would use more fuel than what’s necessary.
I don’t think we should be trying to tell our farmers how to make their choices, how to decide what crops to choose. The farmers, I think, are the best ones to make those decisions. They’re going to make the management decisions that are best for their business, and they know what’s best. They are in fact the best stewards of the land in this province and they will continue to be the best stewards because they have a vested interest in that land, Mr. Speaker…
On affordable early childhood education:
As well, this platform outlines developing affordable early childhood education programming. What does that mean? Well let’s use the Quebec model again. At $7 a day of cost, amounts to $9,000 per child in that province. Here in Saskatchewan we have 15,200 licensed daycare spaces, government-funded, at approximately $3,700 per space for a total of $56 million. If we were to move to even a $15-a-day cap, that would cost us another $40 million that would be paid for by the taxpayers in this province.
On a new STC:
This plan outlined in this platform also advocates establishing a new Saskatchewan transportation company. Well we better look at some facts here, Mr. Speaker, because there wasn’t any in this proposal. Since 1980, Mr. Speaker, on our old STC, ridership declined by 77 per cent. It declined by 35 per cent since ’12. Last year of its operation, ridership dropped by nine per cent, another 18,000 rides. Since ’07 the subsidy per ride at that bus company rose from $25 to $94. And in fact, 1978 was the last year that STC returned any profit back to the taxpayer of this province.
This plan, this campaign plan, they seem to feel that $10 million would restart STC. Well, Mr. Speaker, I’m guessing that they haven’t bought many buses lately and they haven’t built many service garages and they haven’t built many customer service stations. So I think that’s not even realistic…
On municipal revenue sharing:
We heard from our municipal partners. They asked, and we responded. They wanted stable funding. In ’07-08, revenue sharing amounted to $127 million for all of our municipal partners. This year it’s up by a whopping 89 per cent, to $241.1 million in revenue sharing. That’s what we’ve done for the municipalities in our province . . . He suggests that we should use one point of all PST. That would amount to a cost of another $80 million to our taxpayers, Mr. Speaker. Where is that money coming from? Nothing outlined here.
Cox also had a number of remarks focusing on items relevant to the Battlefords and area:
Mr. Speaker, I think there are some glaring omissions in this plan, and I’d just like to mention a couple of them here. First of all, I saw nothing in this plan about capital investments. The plan outlines approximately $2.5 billion in expenses, but then if you add to it some of the things that we proposed in our most recent budget — things like $1.5 billion for infrastructure in our Crown corporations, another $1.2 billion for the Sask Builds capital plan — not here, Mr. Speaker.
Health infrastructure spending, one item alone, $34 million for the Sask. Hospital, North Battleford — something that is very, very important to me and to all residents of this province, but certainly residents of the Battlefords.
$214 million for highway upgrades and safety projects. Several passing lanes, great safety factor, and that including Highway No. 4 between North Battleford and Cochin, something that we’ve been asking for for many, many years. And it’s going to be a great addition to a very, very busy highway.
$18 million in transfers to municipal infrastructure for municipal roads, urban connector program, community airports. And just on the side here, Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to mention last year we received $275,000 for repaving of our North Battleford Cameron McIntosh Airport. That airport’s very important to the whole … Northwest. It not only serves the Battlefords but it serves all the Northwest — oil exploration up in that area, mining exploration, farm population.
Second admission, Mr. Speaker, no indication here where the dollars are going to come from. They always ask, many, many times in this House, where did all our dollars go? Well I’ve just outlined a few things where our dollars go. They go to invest in infrastructure for the future. They’ve gone to taking 112,000 people right off the tax rolls altogether, saved them literally billions of dollars in tax savings. But you know, where does the money come from for all of these promises? I’d like to know where. And on top of all of this, Mr. Speaker, he favours a carbon tax to impose on the province of Saskatchewan, which is going to cripple our economy even more and lower the amount of tax dollars that are available…
Cox wrapped up with some final remarks.
I’d just like to wrap up by saying, Mr. Speaker, my wife, Linda, and I have three great kids that we are very proud of. And they’ve got three great spouses that we’re also proud of. And I would like to say they’re all employed here in the province of Saskatchewan, and they’re paying taxes, Mr. Speaker. And I think even, with no disrespect to my kids but even more important, we’ve got five beautiful grandkids.
And, Mr. Speaker, I stand here in this House today and say that I will do everything in my power to ensure that a party, a leader that proposes such loosey-goosey ideas with no plan to pay for them, will never ever be able to form government. I will not have my children getting up in the morning and going to work knowing that at the end of the day, the government’s going to have their hand in their pocket to take half of that back to pay for such ill-founded, ill-planned program as this.
