Dear Editor
Recently the Sask. Party caucus sent out a glossy six-page, pre-election brochure costing taxpayers approximately $75,000. In it, the Sask. Party claims their investments prompted a decade of growth in Saskatchewan. If growth were measured by debt, we have indeed experienced a decade of growth. In the last decade, Saskatchewan鈥檚 public debt grew from $10 billion to a record $20 billion.
The Sask. Party managed to spend a resource revenue windfall and then some. The Fiscal Stabilization Fund left by the previous NDP administration is spent. Revenue from the sale of Crown assets also spent. The 2017 increase and expansion of the Provincial Sales Tax from five to six per cent generated almost an additional billion dollars of revenue per year, yet the province鈥檚 debt grew steadily.听
We saw growth in expenditures on consultants, an increase of 228 per cent between 2009 and 2014. Growth in infrastructure spending, like $2 billion handed to a French multinational corporation for the Regina bypass project. The number of MLAs grew at a cost of almost $700,000 per year. Salaries and benefits to the premier鈥檚 political staff increased 鈥� a 74 per cent increase since 2009. The Global Transportation Hub land scam wasted millions in taxpayer鈥檚 money while lining the pockets of a Sask. Party donor and Alberta business associate of former minister Bill Boyd. Payouts to unsuccessful bidders on P3 project amounted to $5.6 million. Penalty payouts to Cenovus Energy amounted to $20 million when the new $1.5 billion Boundary Dam carbon capture plant failed to capture enough carbon.听听听
The growth in waiting lists for health care, growth in classroom size, growth in student post-secondary education debt, 听growth in the use of food banks, growth in crime and in homelessness, that鈥檚 growth that impacts the most vulnerable in our society. Home foreclosures in Saskatchewan tripled in the last decade.听 Fifty-two per cent of people in Saskatchewan say they are living pay cheque to pay cheque and 45 per cent say they are going to take on more debt this year just to get by.听听
The only real take away from the Sask. Party鈥檚 鈥淣ext Decade of Growth鈥� plan is that they promise to continue to reduce taxes for large corporations.听For decades, right wing governments have tried that disastrous approach to growing the economy, fattening the pockets of the super wealthy who already have $32 trillion hoarded away in tax havens.听
Evelyn Johnson
Spiritwood
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