The Saskatchewan government is the debt by more than $6.5 million a day in this year’s provincial budget.
The government is adding about $2.4 billion more to the debt, in total. The debt will reach $23.5 billion by the end of the year. That works out to about $18,800 per Saskatchewanian.
The government is calling the budget “balanced.” Only politicians could think that taking out billions of dollars in new loans with no plan to pay them back is balanced in any way.
Piling debt onto taxpayers without a plan to pay it back isn’t new for the Saskatchewan government. The government has the debt by 264 per cent, since 2015. The budget also predicts that the government is going to continue to borrow money in the future. The government will increase the debt to $29.6 billion by 2029.
That mountain of debt has meant billions of dollars wasted on debt interest payments. Over the decade, the government wasted almost $5 billion on interest payments.
Taxpayers are on the hook for $878.4 million in debt interest payments this year.
Interest payments on the provincial debt will cost Saskatchewanians about $705 each this year.
Debt interest payments are the government’s fifth highest expense this year. Debt charges are costing taxpayers more this year than the government spends on transportation, economic development, community development or environment and natural resources.
But that doesn’t mean provincial politicians were working hard to cut spending and find savings for taxpayers. The budget increases by $909 million compared to the last budget. Government spending is up in 11 out of 12 departments.
Somehow, the Saskatchewan government is spending $61 million more this year on what it calls “general government.” If the government couldn’t find savings in “general government,” it’s clear that it wasn’t looking to save taxpayers money anywhere.
It’s likely that the government will call this debt an investment and defend its irresponsible borrowing by claiming it’s needed to build things like schools, hospitals and roads.
When a business owner takes out a mortgage to open a new shop, it does it because it’s a real investment that will generate profits and it makes regular payments to pay it off. But these are assets the government can’t sell. And there’s no plan to pay off the loans.
The province could pay for capital projects by finding even a few savings, but instead it decided to spend more on almost everything and keep taking out irresponsible loans.
This budget is already bad for taxpayers and if tariffs hit Saskatchewan hard, it could get a lot worse.
An ongoing tariff war could decrease the government’s by $1.4 billion in the worst-case scenario, according to the budget. That means that the $2.4 billion extra in debt could easily become at least $3.8 billion if tariffs persist.
The one bright spot in the budget is that the government is education property tax mill rates this year. The cut will save taxpayers more than $100 million annually. That’s welcome relief for businesses, farmers and other property owners struggling to keep the lights on amid economic uncertainty.
But it’s clear the government is becoming more and more disconnected from its core principles.
The Saskatchewan Party says that one of its is the “steady, gradual reduction in government spending and taxation while maintaining a firm commitment to balanced budgets.” This budget increases spending on almost everything, provides minimal new tax relief and piles more debt onto taxpayers.
One of the government’s themes for the is fiscal responsibility, but it’s fiscally irresponsible to saddle taxpayers with $2.4 billion worth of new debt.
The government should have used this budget to cut spending and stop borrowing money.
Instead, Saskatchewan is diving further into debt and Saskatchewanians are on the hook for millions of dollars more in debt interest payments.
Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
