A look at how two main parties have fared while in power
Which party is better on growth, jobs, cuts and debt? We take a look at what they’ve done when in power
From the first day on the campaign trail, Ryan Meili and Scott Moe made the 2020 election a contest of party records.
Moe, the Saskatchewan Party leader, used the word “record” 19 times in his campaign launch speech.
“The last time the NDP were in office, they drove people and jobs and opportunities out of this province,” Moe said.
That same day, Meili said the Saskatchewan Party comes for cherished Crowns and vital social programs when the fiscal going gets tough.
“They've done it before. They did it in 2017, and they're going to do it again, but only worse, if reelected,” said Meili, the Saskatchewan NDP leader.
But what do the numbers really say? Which party has the better record on growth, jobs, debt, deficits, cuts and closures? Postmedia took a close look at three decades of data to find out.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
By a slim margin, the economy grew faster in an average year under the previous NDP government than in an average year under the Saskatchewan Party.
Gross Domestic Product expanded by just under 40 per cent during the 16 years NDP premiers Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert led the province. It grew by 24 per cent during the first 11 years of Sask. Party rule up to 2018, the last year for which fully comparable data is available.
Broken down year by year, that's 2.15 per cent under the NDP and two per cent under the Sask. Party.
But the background was different. The NDP trailed the rest of Canada, which grew by more than 60 per cent over the same period, or more than three per cent per year. The Sask. Party government topped the national average.
JOBS AND POPULATION
Under the Saskatchewan NDP, the province lost jobs in its first year, and growth stayed flat until 1994. But employment surged as Saskatchewan entered a resource boom during the NDP'S final years in office. All totalled, net employment increased by 52,300 jobs from October 1991 to October 2007 — 3,300 jobs in an average year of NDP government.
Until the pandemic, the Sask. Party's job record was almost twice as strong. Employment jumped 77,600 jobs in the 12 years up to October 2019, or 6,500 in an average year. Pandemic restrictions wiped out 73,800 jobs in two months, though Saskatchewan has gotten closer to its pre-pandemic numbers than any other province.
Still, the losses cut the party's net job growth total back to 55,500 on a seasonally adjusted basis, counting up to September. That works out to about 4,300 per year when annualized. The comparable seasonally adjusted number for the NDP is 3,500 per year.
The NDP saw modest job gains as the labour market tightened but population barely budged. There were just 6,381 more Saskatchewan people after 16 years of NDP government. The Sask. Party racked up far more jobs much more quickly as the population exploded by 171,358 people.
The flip side can be seen in the unemployment rate, which dropped from about eight per cent to four per cent under the NDP. The rate remained steady under the Sask. Party until the oil crash in 2014-15. Though it's ticked up in recent years, it remains the lowest in Canada.
RESOURCE PRICES
The resource price roller coaster has carried the parties from crushing lows to dizzying heights and back again.
The NDP got the shorter end of the stick, especially early in its term, just as it was stuck dealing with mounting debt and a harsh cut in transfers from Ottawa. For around the first dozen years of NDP mandates, Benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil prices hovered between about US$20 and US$50 in inflation adjusted 2020 dollars. They began to shoot up toward the tail end of the Calvert government, brushing up against US$100.
With Brad Wall and Sask. Party in power, prices stayed high until 2014. The average inflation adjusted price for the NDP was about $46, compared to roughly $84 for the Sask. Party.
Potash was even kinder to the Sask. Party in its early years, peaking at over $800 a tonne in 2009 after years spent creeping up to just over $280 under the NDP.
That might partly explain the NDP'S disappointing early record on jobs and population, as employment in the key resource and construction sectors followed those price trends pretty closely. That same bad luck also sheds light on the fiscal picture ahead. In 2020 dollars, the NDP could count on a widely variable average of $1.4 billion in resource revenues, compared to $2.6 billion under an average year of Sask. Party government.
DEBT AND DEFICITS
Saskatchewan faced the prospect of bankruptcy when Roy Romanow took over as premier in 1991.
The deficit ballooned under Grant Devine's outgoing Progressive Conservative government. As of March 31, 1992, public debt reached $13 billion and surpassed $14.1 billion the next year — more than $23 billion in today's dollars. Interest payments on that debt peaked at $1.34 billion, eating up 22.5 per cent of all government spending — more than education and second only to health.
At the same time the federal government cut transfer payments in a bid to balance its own budgets. Payments dropped from $1.5 billion in 1990-1991 to just over $550 million in 1997-98.
Romanow ran deficits until 199495, followed by seven straight surpluses. By the time the NDP left office, in fiscal year 2007-08, public debt was paid down to $10.2 billion. Interest charges had plummeted to a manageable $547 million.
The Sask. Party used a massive resource windfall to pay down $2.7 billion in debt during its first full fiscal year in office. The debt remained under $10 billion until the oil price collapse in 2014, when it began to climb again quickly. It was at $21.3 billion this March, and is set to crack $33 billion by 2024.
The debt hike comes in part from a string of deficits left by ebbing resource revenues, combined with big capital spending from a government that blamed its predecessor for leaving it with crumbling infrastructure.
It's a tricky business counting how many deficits and surpluses each party has run, since accounting rules have changed at least twice. But under the current system, the NDP is 11 surpluses for 16 while the Sask. Party is four surpluses for 12.
Still, the mounting debt hasn't taken Saskatchewan anywhere near when it flirted with bankruptcy. Interest payments are still affordable, at $675 million, and the province has a solid credit rating.
CUTS AND CLOSURES
Romanow's budgetary success came at a price. The Sask. Party is now making sure that Meili pays for it on the campaign trail.
Under the NDP'S last stint in government, divisions closed 176 schools and health regions closed 52 rural hospitals. Budgetary pressures weren't the only reason for closures. Enrolment was down due to rural depopulation, and 32 more schools have closed under the Sask. Party even as it builds urban schools.
In the early NDP years, program spending dropped 3.7 per cent in 1992-93 and 3.5 per cent the year after that. Before the NDP came to power, Saskatchewan was spending well over 20 per cent of its GDP on government programs. By 1998, that was down to 15 per cent, according to calculations from RBC.
But program spending recovered in Romanow's later years, and continued to rise under Calvert. It averaged just under 18 per cent over the last five years of NDP government.
That's about where it stayed, on average, under the Sask. Party. Record-setting spending on health, education and other services in budget after budget is the fruit of growth, rather than a sign of starkly different choices.
Those 2017 Sask. Party cuts? At 3.8 per cent of revenue, they were almost exactly as deep as the austerity Romanow imposed a quarter century before.
When you really get down to it, finances and resources rule the day, and the records aren't so different after all.