PC’s provincial budget deliberately incomplete

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This article was published 31/05/2016 (3449 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What words should be used to describe Finance Minister Cameron Friesen’s first budget?

“Hastily prepared” works, as Premier Brian Pallister’s new Progressive Conservative government is tabling its first budget just six weeks after the provincial election, a very short interval in which to plan a document of this complexity.

You could call it “modest” in its goals. But that’s not a bad thing; Friesen has been careful not to try to deliver on too many campaign pledges so soon after the election.

However, the best way of describing this budget may be “deliberately incomplete.”

It is a deliberately thin budget, missing much of the information contained in previous budget documents. There are no future forecasts for the deficit and debt, despite the fact Friesen boasted his government would balance the budget sometime in its second term. In fact, there are a multitude of claims made by Friesen that simply cannot be substantiated by this budget.

This is a government that is anxious to look and sound different from the former NDP government. Friesen used terms like “new course,” “new direction” and “new trajectory” to describe his government’s approach. This is masterful political marketing, mostly unsupported by the actual budget. Getting bogged down in the details will only reveal that the challenges facing the new Tory government, and the solutions it is proposing, are not all that much different than what the NDP had to offer.

Case in point: the budget promises to hold the increase in expenditures to three per cent. Given the intense and often unpredictable forces exerted in health, education and family services, that would be an impressive achievement. The NDP regularly overspent in these departments, a legacy that has been severely criticized by the Tories. However, when pressed, Friesen could offer little more than a claim the new government has a new resolve to hold the line on spending. No hard administrative cap or other formal measure will force departments to live within budgeted amounts.

In his pre-budget news conference, Friesen said the proof of this newfound resolve was in $122 million he said he has already found. However, when asked to itemize those savings, Tory officials revealed the $122 million actually referred to adjustments made to revenue projections. No “savings” per se, but rather accounting measures that are moving things in the right direction.

Oddly, there are some spending cuts and tax measures that will move the government closer to balance, albeit ones the Tories do not want to spend much time discussing.

For example, the Tories will spend $48 million less on highways next year. Pallister warned Manitobans during the election campaign he would not spend as much on infrastructure as the NDP were promising to spend over the next five years. This budget brings that pledge to fruition.

With a reduction in spending on a major element of core infrastructure, it means Friesen will now be using the NDP’s much-maligned PST hike — originally introduced to generate as much as $300 million each year to fund infrastructure — to help balance the budget. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you’re willing to admit that is what you’re doing. Right now, Friesen is not willing to do that.

Friesen is also less than forthcoming with his explanation for capping the seniors’ tax credit at $470, and introducing income testing to determine eligibility. The NDP, which avoided all mention of income tests, had promised to increase the tax credit to $2,300 this year. Now, the tax credit is frozen at last year’s levels, and will be completely clawed back from seniors with family income over $63,500. Together, these measures will save $44 million this year.

As a fiscal measure, this tax decision is both smart and well-timed; many thought the NDP should have done this years ago. However, Friesen failed miserably to explain how a significant reduction in a valuable tax credit jived with his government’s claim that it had “frozen taxes.”

There were tax cuts. Friesen’s budget introduced a bump in the Basic Personal Exemption, and indexed income tax brackets to inflation. But that doesn’t erase the fact that capping the seniors’ tax credit, and clawing it back based on income, is a tax increase for some Manitobans.

It would be totally unfair to expect the Tories to use this budget to deliver on every election pledge, or solve every fiscal problem, right out of the gate. As the first budget from a new government, it should have been an opportunity to be completely upfront, transparent and intellectually honest about why it was doing what it was doing.

Instead, we got a budget that simply does not do what it says it does. It is rife with unsubstantiated claims of fiscal prudence, and deliberately conceals measures that are either inconsistent with stated policies, or just outright unpopular. That makes this budget — the first major test for the Pallister government — a pretty big disappointment.

Pallister has frequently promised that he would conduct the business government much differently than the NDP. He promised there would be none of the deception, dishonesty or misdirection that he said had become hallmarks of the previous administration.

Instead, the Tories are showing us that at the very least, they have the potential to match the NDP in those woeful habits.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca