Budget, session a fight between stability, boldness

Asked what the provincial government wants out of Monday’s budget and the following mini-sitting that will be the last such gathering at the legislature before the Oct. 26 election, one Saskatchewan Party official offered a succinct response: Stability.

This is a big ask in this day and age.

There again, that recent Angus Reid poll showing the Sask. Party with a 25-percentage-point lead over the NDP suggests the public has been in a pretty forgiving mood since the Saskatchewan legislative assembly rose on March 18 after the government informally presented its spending estimates.

This may be surprising given that the

COVID -19 pandemic shut down most of the economy and most everything else, foisting job losses upon this province unseen since the 1930s.

This has forced Premier Scott Moe’s government to respond with a $2-billion “booster shot” of capital spending and other measures that blew up what was to be a balanced 2020-21 Saskatchewan budget. The “best guess” is the pandemic deficit will be between $1.3 billion and $3.3 billion.

However, it may be that the government can find a little room for “stability” with those rather generous deficit parameters. Frankly, there may even be some perverse comfort in returning to old-time scrutiny of the government’s books and the accompanying accusations of wrong-headed spending choices, big deficits and financial jiggery-pokery.

To offset such charges, expect to hear the Sask. Party government use a lot of comparisons to financial woes elsewhere like Manitoba (which is talking about a $5-billion deficit this year) and Alberta (contemplating a $20-billion 2020-21 shortfall).

And expect to hear an awful lot about how Saskatchewan was better positioned than perhaps anyone else in the country even prior to COVID -19 because we were already well on our way to a balanced 2020-21 budget because of our $1.3-billion “contingency fund” in “liquid cash reserves”

However, expect to hear less from the Sask. Party government about how it intends to hide the deficit and how it has been hiding deficits for a while.

For example, the NDP Opposition notes that the Sask. Party government has yet to account for the spending of $1.4 billion of that $2-billion booster shot that would be categorized as pre-election spending under usual circumstances.

One highly under-reported story since the province moved to summary financial statements a few years back is the practice of borrowing for capital (i.e. this $2-billion booster shot) so that it doesn’t appear to be on the annual budget books and so that it makes the financial statement look a lot better than it really is.

Expect to see more of this from Finance Minister Donna Harpauer on Monday, so it’s likely advisable to look directly to “public debt” to get a truer financial picture of where we are at.

(Even before COVID-19, the March 18 “spending estimates” revealed an added $1.36 billion to public debt to a whopping $22.7 billion.)

If the NDP Opposition is smart, it will spend its very limited time left in the legislature focusing on how the financial picture we see Monday won’t even vaguely resemble the audited public accounts for 2020-21 that won’t come until a year from now.

Also, expect the NDP to have a heyday on wrong spending priorities (the Global Transportation Hub and the $2-billion bypass versus long-term care homes and overcrowded classrooms) to supplement a narrative that this government, which is offering a 13-centan-hour minimum wage increase, has been far from bold.

Opposition Leader Ryan Meili is calling for boldness to deal with this crisis, knowing full well boldness hasn’t been Moe’s thing.

But maybe in doing so, the NDP is asking for something this session that voters — also wanting a return to stability — aren’t ready to give.

There may be some interesting debates over issues like whether the public now sees the NDP’S demands for a $15 minimum wage and hikes to service providers as reasonable.

This budget and mini-session may provide some fireworks over this contrast.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post and the Saskatoon Starphoenix.