Budget a challenge for new premier
When Saskatchewan Party members choose a new premier at the end of the month, one of the leader’s first priorities will be to shape the 2018-19 budget.
The move will be among the premier’s first opportunities to show Saskatchewan voters what type of leader he or she is and how they differ from retired premier Brad Wall.
The Saskatoon StarPhoenix spoke with Ken Rasmussen, a professor at the University of Regina’s Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, and Joe Garcea, a political studies professor at the University of Saskatchewan, about the challenges the budget will pose to the province’s new premier.
Provincial budgets are typically released in March. Jeff Welke, a spokesman for the provincial Ministry of Finance, says budget work is following “the usual process and timetable” despite the ongoing leadership race.
However, Rasmussen said he suspects the 2018-19 budget won’t come out on time.
“(The new premier) will have to delay the budget; they’ll have to make it appear, at least, that it’s their budget, that they’re the new leader of the party and they’re putting their stamp on it, no matter what the reality is,” he said. “If you’re simply implementing Brad Wall’s last budget, then you don’t look like much of a leader.”
Garcea said he won’t be surprised if the budget still comes down in the next two months, “but if it comes out in March, it would surprise me if there were any radical shifts from the status quo.”
He said a new leader may argue it’s impossible to implement significant change so quickly and may tell the public that the 201920 budget will be when people see what direction the Sask. Party is going under new leadership.
If the budget is delayed, Rasmussen said that could cause anguish for institutions that are left wondering what their funding will be for the upcoming year.
“The implications are just uncertainty in an already uncertain environment,” he said.
After a new Sask. Party leader is elected, that person will need to select MLAs to serve in cabinet.
That means Finance Minister Donna Harpauer may not be in that role when the budget is finalized.
“It’s a very awkward, uncomfortable and — in some sense — unprecedented scenario for the minister to be in, and frankly, for the Saskatchewan government,” Rasmussen said.
If a new finance minister is chosen, he or she would need to be briefed and prepared in advance of releasing a budget.
The 2016-17 budget, which closed the Saskatchewan Transportation company and slashed funding to universities, social services, libraries and the provincial hearing aid plan, was so unpopular that any budget released this year will seem rosier in comparison, Garcea said.
Whoever is elected leader of the Sask. Party knows the public has no interest in more “draconian cuts” and will somehow try to demonstrate they “have a heart” by promising more resources — no matter how few or far in the future — to sectors such as education or social services, he added.
Rasmussen said the upcoming budget will certainly be unpopular given the province’s economic climate and the 2017-18 deficit projection presently sitting at $679 million. He said unless a new leader goes in a different direction from last year’s budget, people will be disappointed.
“Unless the new premier wants to say, ‘ Well, Brad Wall made a big mistake and I think it’s time to have deficits and go into big debt,’ (and that’s got its own perils too), it’s sort of a poisoned chalice,” he said.
Voting for the Sask. Party leadership is already underway. A new leader will be determined at a leadership convention in Saskatoon on Jan. 27.