A new report accuses the
provincial government of misusing its oil and potash revenues.
This year, the oil and potash
industries are expected to bring in over one and a half billion dollars.
In recent years, the government
has benefitted from resource revenues that exceeded their projections. But a
new report says that’s not always a good thing.
“What we found is that there’s
been pretty consistent of revenue surprises over the course of the fiscal year,
and along with that, a pretty consistent amount of expenditure surprises as
well,” said Colin Busby, Senior Policy Analyst with the C.D. Howe Institute.
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Last year, the province projected
oil revenues to be $1.53 billion, $119 million short of that fiscal year’s
actual revenue. Potash was estimated to bring in $438 million, $57 less than
actual.
The report says 70 cents on
every extra dollar earned is being used on new expenditures, where it should be
used instead to pay down debt and lower taxes. But the province counters that it
is using the money wisely.
“In past years, we’ve used
excess revenues to move forward infrastructure projects like schools and
highways. We have a growing province and we know that the resource sector is a
big part of that growth,” said Energy and Resources Minister Tim McMillan.
The opposition says that the
debt should be the top priority.
“Every dollar that comes into
the hands of this government is spent, and then some. So this is why we’ve had
debt growth for the past three years, why we’ve had the deficits that we’ve
seen, and why this year alone… We actually have $950 million of debt growth
here this year,” said NDP finance critic Tim McMillan.
Meanwhile, the government has
lowered its expectations of this year’s oil revenues, down 18 per cent from the
budget, an amount equal to $278 million.
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