Tories accused of keeping budget details secret

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2022 (1282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative government has scrimped on details in its supplementary budget books for departments for the second consecutive year.

The government broke with tradition last year by withholding detailed budget information from the public, including estimated staffing and spending levels for critical areas of the province’s pandemic response.

It did so again this year.

“They are thinner than they have ever been,” NDP finance critic Mark Wasyliw said Wednesday about the spending estimates books.

The books are often referred to when the legislature enters what is known as the “estimates” process. This is when Opposition MLAs get to question cabinet ministers in a committee setting. That process begins in May after members return from a week-long break.

“Significant information that has been included in these documents for literally decades has now been removed,” Wasyliw said.

“These estimate books are critical for governments to provide transparent, accountable government — not only for the Opposition to do our job to hold the government to account, but also the media and the public to do their job to keep government honest.”

The move to provide less information began last year.

Detailed health department spending estimates, which had filled a 145-page book in 2020, were reduced to a 32-page summary in 2021.

This year’s estimates book is 54 pages and padded with French translations of the minister’s message and introduction which do not appear in the 2020 book. The estimates books for the two new departments that have been hived off from Health — Seniors and Long-Term Care and Mental Health and Community Wellness — are 31 and 47 pages, respectively.

Spending, staffing and program information for all other government departments were similarly cut.

The families department estimates book shrank to 33 pages in 2021 from 128 pages in 2020. This year it was 52 pages.

For the education department, program spending information in 2021 was covered in a 35-page document, down from 109 pages the previous year. This year’s estimates book has not yet been tabled.

When asked during question period Tuesday why the government isn’t being more transparent, former finance minister Scott Fielding said this year’s budget document provided more information “so people know where their money is being spent.”

The government sought the advice of 51,000 Manitobans in preparing the budget, said Fielding, who responded to the question because Finance Minister Cameron Friesen is away at meetings with bond rating agencies, his office said.

“We’re investing more money in health care, more in education. We’re making life more affordable for Manitobans,” Fielding told the house.

No government official was available to comment Wednesday.

In a statement, a spokesperson said this year’s estimates “include meaningful information to the public to provide transparency on government spending priorities.

“The updated format reflects government’s adoption of the balanced scorecards system of performance measurement,” it said.

“This enables the expected performance of departments to align to government priorities and performance as publicly reported on the Manitoba Measuring Progress website.”

The estimates show key department-level financial and staffing information, it said, and will now include “equity and diversity benchmarks” and an improved risk analysis section.

The spending estimates no longer include five-year comparisons that would show patterns of cuts and underfunding, the NDP finance critic said, pointing toCadham Provincial Laboratory .

“A critical government agency that gets government funding is now being shielded from scrutiny and we see that their staffing levels are being obscured,” said Wasyliw, who noted the PCs have cut the civil service by 18 per cent since forming government in 2016. “We know they continue to fund positions in the government and then not fill them which is essentially a cut because Manitobans don’t get the benefit of those services. This is deeply troubling,” he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca