REGINA - Opposition New Democrats reacted with disbelief to the government’s mid-year report that the deficit has more than doubled since the spring budget, up to $743.5 million.
“I guess what we see today in the mid-year update, you know, is actually really, really pretty troubling,” said NDP Finance Critic Trent Wotherspoon on Thursday.
“So here we are three weeks out from an election campaign, and (Finance Minister) Jim Reiter and (Premier) Scott Moe say, oops, you know, we missed this thing by $500 million. Almost half a billion dollars off in just three weeks out from an election. It's almost unbelievable.”
In speaking to reporters at the Legislature, Wotherspoon also blasted the government for pointing to crop insurance claims as the reason for the increased deficit. He said the government has to “look in the mirror on this front, actually own up and have some accountability.”
“Time and time again, you know, they're pointing fingers and, you know, it's the fault of the agricultural producers or they're always blaming someone else, but clearly we have a government that just simply can't manage a budget and the waste of dollars in our budget, I mean, and that's the making of this Sask Party government. It's ultimately Saskatchewan people who are left to pay the price on this front.”
He pointed to examples of what he characterized as mismanagement, including the “costs of the GTH and the bypass and the dollars that that continues to cost people daily in our province, through to the choice to outsource mammograms to Calgary and send women from Saskatchewan to Calgary at ten times the cost, or the mismanagement of their IT system costing hundreds of millions of dollars.”
He also pointed to the travel records that were being released as well. “I understand that we have Scott Moe and his contingent booking hotels on the taxpayers dime in Toronto for over $800 a night for each of those hotel rooms,” said Wotherspoon.
“Like, who's booking hotel rooms for over 800 bucks a night? These are the hard-earned dollars of Saskatchewan people.”
On the midterm report numbers, Wotherspoon did not buy the government’s explanation that the vast discrepancy in the deficit numbers between the spring budget and now was due to crop insurance claims.
“This should have been adjusted before we went into the provincial election,” Wotherspoon said.
“What we're talking about was a real drought that occurred in July of this year. and of course we were off to a good start, a really good start with growing conditions and good rain and then the taps just shut off and that was a reality for many producers, certainly in the southern part of the province and the number should have been adjusted in the budget for a long time before going into an election. And then pretending to come out of an election three weeks later and saying, whoa, we never could have known, we're off by half a billion dollars. Those impacts are tracked in a very regular way. We have weather stations all through the region, we have producers who knew the reality all through June. And so it's problematic that we have a government, once again, that can't manage for the reality and when we face some challenges, can't be straight with Saskatchewan people about the financial position.”
Wotherspoon added that “the Premier, certainly the Finance Minister, ought to have known that there was much more pressure on crop insurance and there's no good excuse for not updating those numbers.”
As for how to improve the financial picture, Wotherspoon said “we really need to open up these books. We need to review the financial arrangements. We need to make sure that we're getting value for the hard-earned public dollars of Saskatchewan people.
"We spoke about this in terms of an accountability commission and value for money commission. This is exactly what we need to do to make sure that we're getting the greatest value for the public dollars of Saskatchewan people. That we're not wasting them on overpriced hotel rooms or mammograms that are costing ten times more or on projects that go sideways.”
At his news conference Thursday afternoon announcing the midyear report, Finance Minister Reiter was asked about what the anticipated NDP reaction would be to the growing deficit, and in particular whether the NDP might accuse the government of having lowballed the budget numbers in the spring. In response, Reiter defended the numbers provided.
“I think the facts speak for themselves. The largest percentage factor here is crop insurance,” Reiter responded.
“At budget time, you have no way of predicting what the weather's going to be through the crop growing year. So that's the bulk of the answer right there.”
