If only Brad Wall was as good at managing the province as he is at managing voters’ expectations.
When the newly elected government finally dropped its 2016/2017 budget last week, there were no surprises.
It was a deficit budget, as promising. The red ink officially adds up to $434 million, but it is technically much higher when you consider how it is being offset by financing.
Still, not only did Saskatchewanians not bat an eye at that $400-plus per every man, woman and child, they actually applauded the fact our popular premier managed to keep the deficit “modest” in what are, by all accounts, hard economic times.
Nevermind that this is the government that brought in balanced budget legislation yet has failed to balance the budget now in six out of its nine attempts.
That’s right, folks. Last year’s supposed surplus of $107 turned into a summary financial deficit $427 million.
Wall had admitted as much even before the election. That’s good expectation management.
We’re not going to say the government was lying when it projected the surplus, but they may have been doing some creative fudging. First, they were optimistic in revenue forecasting, counting on a rebound in oil and potash revenues. Second, they ignored the $700 million in borrowing they had to do just to make the deficit look better than it actually is.
And now, with a second deficit budget in a row, they are in serious breach of their own law, which not only forbids back-to-back deficits, but requires the budget following a deficit year to be in surplus at least equal to the previous year’s deficit.
Oh, but it gets even better. The 2016-17 deficit is not the second, but the third in a row.
Saskatchewan was also supposed to be in surplus for 2014-15, but that’s when oil tanked and with it the good times.
Granted, nobody could have accurately forecasted just how bad it would get, but what happened to our nest egg? The Saskatchewan Party presided over the best of times this province has ever known. Now that things have tightened up, we’ve got nothing to fall back on?
How do they keep getting re-elected? Obviously we don’t care about honesty and debt, we only care about spending despite all the talk of “keeping Saskatchewan strong” by controlling spending and not increasing taxes, what they have really done is defer the burden on future generations.
Long-term pain for short-term gain is nothing new for politicians, of course, and nobody is better at that than conservatives.
The Saskatchewan Party, like the former federal Conservatives it so admires, is great at talking the talk, but terrible at walking the walk. Under Stephen Harper, the federal debt skyrocketed while Conservative MPs kept repeating the ad nauseum mantra of low taxes. Instead of tax and spend, it was borrow and spend.
Sound familiar? Under Brad Wall, Saskatchewan will sport a $14.8 billion debt by the end of 2017. Contrary to the talk, spending continues apace for 2016-17 with an additional $1.3 billion in debt to keep the deficit “manageable.”
This might all be forgivable if it wasn’t for the hypocrisy. They shout so loud and proud about how financially prudent and competent they supposedly are while demonstrating the exact opposite.
Apparently, though, as long as they are willing to keep paving roads and building schools, we are willing to overlook the integrity issue.
Now, they say, they will balance in 2017-2018 promising transformational change. Again, they’re counting on a bounce back in commodity prices of which there is no indication. As recently as last week, potash industry experts were predicting several years of stagnant prices in the $200 to $300 range.
Oil futures are no better. Despite some recent buoyancy due to unrest in Nigeria, long-term forecasts remain tempered in that sector.
In short, we are either in for some shocking austerity going forward or more of the status quo deficits, borrowing and spending beyond our means.
We don’t know which is worse, but either way, we got what we voted for.
And that is a tribute to Brad Wall’s skill as a politician, not as an economic manager.
