The official Opposition is calling the 2015-16 budget “incredibly frustrating” and one that fails to recognize financial pressures families across the province are facing.
In a conference call with members of the media, NDP finance critic Trent Wotherspoon said the Saskatchewan Party’s record spending budget isn’t focused on families across the province.
“This government has failed to address the things that matter to Saskatchewan; its people,” Wotherspoon said.
The tight, yet balanced, 2015-16 budget includes a spending forecast of $14.17 billion and expected revenue of $14.28 billion, but Wotherspoon said the critical investments needed in education, healthcare and seniors care – the three areas he said the NDP identified in advance of the budget’s release - are not being made.
“This budget is absolutely inadequate in addressing seniors’ needs,” he said, adding classrooms are still overcrowded and hospital wait times are too long.
Wotherspoon noted seniors in Saskatchewan, who make more than $65,515 annually, will be bumped from the Senior’s Drug Plan that covers up to $20 per prescription. The income threshold was $80,255 in 2014.
A $60,000 income threshold was also introduced to the Active Families Benefit program, which has not had an income limitation since its implementation in 2009. This will impact hundreds of families, who have children registering in sports and other activities, Wotherspoon said.
“That’s simply this government’s failure to recognize the pressures families face,” he said.
The emphasis on capital projects and its impact on the province’s ballooning debt was another aspect Wotherspoon pointed out. Significant withdrawals from the Saskatchewan’s growth and financial security fund, which according to the NDP finance critic, contained $1.35 billion in 2009, has allowed the Saskatchewan Party to continue spending at a record-pace and quickly diminish the province’s “rainy day fund,” to just $200 million.
“It’s disappointing to Saskatchewan people to be coming through a decade-long boom and realize that debt has gone through the roof and that not a penny has been set aside for long-term savings,” he said.
Wotherspoon said the NDP have cautioned against the rapid spending and proposed a ‘long-term savings account’ that would accumulate from a resource-based windfall. The government initially considered the idea, he said, but eventually ‘flip-flopped’ on the concept.
Cuts to climate change funding and alternate energy sources, an increasingly popular topic in the southeast with the completion of the Boundary Dam 3 carbon capture project in October 2014, was another frustrating aspect of the budget, Wotherspoon said.
“Their (Sask Party) record on this front is shameful,” he said, while referring to Saskatchewan Party candidate Bronwyn Eyre, who, in 2011, noted in a newspaper column, that climate change is a “myth based on witchcraft reasoning."
Wotherspoon said the government “barely” recognizes climate change as a problem and has cut climate change funding year after year.
Another budget angle Wotherspoon criticized was the millions dedicated to the John Black Lean project, including the “hundreds of millions” allocated to Lean consultants, whose job descriptions weren’t clearly defined, according to reports by the provincial auditor.
