Sask.'s public debt — almost $20B and growing — nearly absent from election campaign spotlight
Debt interest payments equal to cost of hiring 7,000 nurses or police officers, say critics
Health care and education spending. Tax cuts, exemptions and rebates. Saskatchewan political leaders are promising taxpayers they will pay less, but get better public services.
One issue nearly absent from the campaign trail in the lead-up to the Oct. 28 provincial election is the recent trend toward deficit budgets and the province's rapidly-growing debt. The debt has more than tripled in the past decade, to nearly $20 billion from $5.4 billion.
"Over time, that deficit becomes debt and the debt incurs an interest payment. So that, just like a snowball, will keep loading and loading and loading bigger if you don't do anything about it," said Haizen Mou, a professor of government finance at the Johnson-Shoyama School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan.
That $20-billion figure represents general debt accumulating in the operations of government ministries. The government reserve a separate category called specific debt for capital projects and other expenses. That sits at more than $11 billion. That's a $31-billion "snowball" of total debt.
Interest payments on that debt will now top $700 million per year.
Gage Haubrich, Prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the average family of four is paying more than $2,000 per year in tax on interest payments. Haubrich said that money could have hired roughly 7,000 nurses or police officers across the province.
Haubrich said taxpayers should be outraged.
"One of the most important things the government can do is balance the budget and start to pay down debt, because that means the government will be on the hook for less and less money wasted on debt interest payments," Haubrich said.
"Every single dollar the government adds in debt has to be paid back, plus interest, and that's costing Saskatchewan taxpayers a lot of money this year."
University of Regina political science professor Tom McIntosh said this election campaign is different than those of the past.
"Ten or 15 years ago, so much of our election campaigns were focused on the debt, the running of deficits. Who was the better financial manager? All of that, all of that sort of rhetoric, has left the political agendas," McIntosh said.
McIntosh said most of the provincial debt has been accumulated by the Saskatchewan Party and the Progressive Conservative governments of the '80s.
In 2008, then-premier Brad Wall said his top priority was debt elimination.
"I'd like Saskatchewan to have a debt clock with exactly one digit — zero," Wall said that year in a government news release.
The province was experiencing a boom in nearly every resource: uranium, oil, potash, farm commodities. Billions in total debt were paid off. In 2012, Wall enlisted former U of S president Peter MacKinnon to study the best uses for Saskatchewan's surplus resource revenue, "once the province's debt has been retired."
MacKinnon recommended a "Futures Fund" similar to the sovereign wealth funds in North Dakota, Norway and dozens of other resource-rich jurisdictions. It was never created. Deficit budgets have followed nearly every year since then.
Moe has noted that Saskatchewan's debt isn't as bad as most other provinces and that Saskatchewan is doing well on another key indicator, the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio.
McIntosh said he was surprised the NDP isn't raising the debt issue more in the campaign.
"I'm maybe not surprised that the Sask. Party doesn't want to talk about it, because the overall provincial debt has increased significantly in the last 17 years. Only a small part of it can be blamed on the pandemic," McIntosh said.
"I am surprised that the NDP isn't making more of it, but it may also be that it's not an issue that right now is resonating with people."
- Platform Tracker 2024: How do Saskatchewan's parties compare on these election issues?
- Watch more Sask. election coverage, including full news conferences, on CBC Saskatchewan's YouTube page.
CBC News recently asked both major party leaders their plan for debt reduction.
Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe answered the question during a campaign stop in the town of Kenaston.
"We want to ensure we're continuing to grow the economy and invest in hospitals and schools, and the people that are offering those services. But we always need to be focused on ensuring that that debt is manageable over time and when we can, decreasing it."
At a news conference in Saskatoon, NDP Leader Carla Beck said investing in health care, education and economic growth will need to come before debt reduction.
"We need to get the economy firing on all cylinders again. This government is presiding over a record of economic loss," she said. "We need to ensure that we've got the economy thriving on all sectors."
Neither party plans to balance the budget until the fourth year of their term if they form government.
McIntosh and Haubrich said the public is demanding more for less, so it's difficult to pitch debt reduction in the campaign. But they said the government can't continue the debt trend of the past decade.
"Until the debt starts to go down … taxpayers are going to be on the hook for that money every single year," Haubrich said.
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