Mandryk: Next Saskatchewan boom needs to be from our heritage fund – Regina Leader-Post

A heritage fund would help to wean Saskatchewan off its dependence on boom-or-bust resources like oil and gas. Don Healy / Regina Leader-Post

All governing politicians avoid talking about a boom.

After all, it implies they are merely the recipients of good luck rather than brilliant managers.

But if they were truly good managers, they would acknowledge that booms and busts occur in a resource-based economy like Saskatchewans and tuckaway a few dollars for a rainy day.

Interestingly, governing politicians whocant ever quite utter the word boom do eagerly subscribe to if not the word itself at least the notion of the word bust.

Consider how much youve heard from Finance Minister Kevin Doherty of late onthedeclining naturalresource commodity prices as the source of the $1.2-billion deficit in the 2016-17 budget.

Itssomewhat true. But its even truer that Dohertys Saskatchewan Party government overspent in the booms and is now paying the price in the bust. This is all too common and something governments hate talking about even more than the reality of booms and busts.

Frankly, the only really shocking thing about what just happened is that we were all somehow mesmerized by Premier Brad Walls insistence that unprecedentedresource prices were forever the new reality. (Remember Wall insisting five years ago when oil was $90-100 U.S. a barrel that it would never fall through a floor of $50 or $60 U.S. a barrel?)

But because politicians wont, the rest of us need to take stock of what weve learned from the latest cycle in Saskatchewans long history of boom and bus cycles:

First, booms cant be all about who races to the trough first in good times.

Todays need for austerity to deal with the $1.2-billion deficit is at least partly an admission of excessive past spending. We are now paying dearly for everything from that $1.9-billion Regina Bypass to the cost of the new Mosaic Stadium, to the decreases you may have received on your property taxes to the 36-plus-per-cent increase to registered nurses to the decision to not pay down more debt that is now again on the rise.

This takes us to the next reality weve learned from the current boom-bust cycle:

Second, busts are a bad time to fix government spending problems because we dont have the money sitting around to fix the problem.

If you live in Saskatchewan today, you cant help but notice how Wall, Doherty, et al. have thrown everything against the wall to see what sticks.

Weve seen enough trial balloons to block the winters sun eliminating all or most of the school boards, privatizing government cleaning services, freezing or rolling back all public sector wages, implementing Wallidays in which public sector employees would be forced to take unpaid days off once a month, cutting into teachers preparation time to reduce education costs and offering voluntary severances for health region CEOs and VPs as we move to a single health district.

What the Saskatchewan Party government is failing to tell you is each and every one of those trial balloons is weighed down with an anchor the costs of breaking contracts or paying severance in contracts that government wont be breaking.

The sum of all this adds up to the impossibility of eliminating a $1.2-billion dollar deficit in single year without massive carnage that would have toinclude big-time tax increases.

So what we need is a return to the basics setting aside the next boom money in a heritage fund that we havent much talked about since former University of Saskatchewan president Peter MacKinnon presented his A Futures Fund for Saskatchewan report in 2013.

In a recent opinion piece, Todd MacKay, Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,broached the problem of Saskatchewan continuing to ride the commodity price roller coaster and the need for a heritage fund to smoothout the bumps.

Were unprepared for the bust because were unprepared for the boom, MacKay said, advocating a heritage fund.

It makes sense. It begins with recognizing that booms and busts will remain a Saskatchewan reality.

Murray Mandryk in the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post.

mmandryk@postmedia.com

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Mandryk: Next Saskatchewan boom needs to be from our heritage fund - Regina Leader-Post