The long anticipated 2016 budget was unveiled this week and while there are no new taxes, Saskatchewan is covered in red ink.
Here are some budget highlights:
• $434M deficit
• Revenue down 1.8 percent
• One billion dollar drop in resource revenue
• Expenses up two per cent
Head of the University of Regina’s political science department, Tom McIntosh weighed in on the 2016 budget and what it might mean for the province’s financial future.
Q: First and foremost what is your reaction to this budget?
A: I think we were anticipating something more dramatic in terms of big cuts, big changes being announced. What we got were lots of small changes more or less with different kinds of impacts and then talk about, ‘now we’re going to start looking at this so-called ‘transformation change.’ Whether it’s health care, education, they are going to begin a process so that by next year – it’s already shaping up all ready to be a more interesting budget.
Q: ‘Transformational change’ is the term the Premier and finance minister are using – what does it really mean?
A: It’s either softening the blow for another deficit or getting people prepared for some very large cuts.
They’re talking about looking at the health care system. Things like, are there too many health care regions? How many do we have? Do we go to three? Do we go to one like Alberta? Those sorts of things in a effort to stream line the administrative costs. I’m not sure personally there is much savings in that but I’d like to see the case for that. Again, changes to the education system, whether you’re removing power for boards or I think the minister of education has already talked about the board looking for ways to collaborate on more things and look for more saving in their budgets.