NDP steering clear of Tories’ budget trap, keeping eye on fall’s election prize By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Mar. 20, 2023

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This article was published 20/03/2023 (948 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative government has laid a trap. The NDP does not appear ready to walk into it.

Every spring, shortly after the governing party in the Manitoba legislature tables its budget plan, opposition parties scramble to figure out how to respond. In most instances, they — particularly when facing a majority government — simply vote against the budget. It’s as certain as death, taxes and budget-implementation bills.

But every four years or so, the budget arrives shortly before an election. That changes the stakes considerably.

In pre-election budgets, governments usually try to load up on the goodies to win the support of voters for another term. That is certainly the case with Premier Heather Stefanson’s pre-election budget: $2 billion in new spending on core programs and $1.8 billion in tax cuts.

But every four years or so, the budget arrives shortly before an election. That changes the stakes considerably.

Even with all those big-ticket items in the budget, both the NDP and Liberals have already voted against the Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act at first reading. But there were questions being raised by the Tories about whether the NDP would use procedural tools at its disposal to delay BITSA and in doing so, delay implementation of the tax cuts it includes.

Some of the tax cuts, particularly the increase to the basic personal exemption, are scheduled to come in this year. Others, such as increases to the income tax thresholds, will not be enacted until the 2024 tax year.

Finance Minister Cliff Cullen said Manitobans should see some relief from the enhanced basic personal exemption in the current tax year, but has frequently suggested the NDP could stop that from happening if it chose to delay BITSA until the fall. By agreement with the government, the NDP are allowed to identify a handful of bills that can be delayed from the spring session of the legislature until the fall.

In interviews shortly after the budget was tabled on March 7, Cullen said delaying passage of BITSA would threaten other “affordability” measures, such as providing a $2,000 grant for hearing aids to seniors earning less than $80,000 annually.

The trap is set. To become the enemies of tax cuts and hearing aids, all the NDP has to do is agree to delay BITSA. Unfortunately for the Tories, the NDP is not prepared to give itself up so easily.

NDP finance critic Adrian Sala confirmed Monday his party would not be making any attempt — officially or unofficially — to delay passage of BITSA.

“(The Tories) have been attempting to make a wedge out of this issue,” Sala said. “We’re not going to play that game. This bill will pass when the government wants it to pass.”

The same goes for the Liberals who, without official party status, cannot officially delay a bill for fall consideration. The Grits could employ procedural hanky-panky to slow down passage, but a spokesman for Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said there will be no effort to delay or slow debate and passage of BITSA.

“(The Tories) have been attempting to make a wedge out of this issue… We’re not going to play that game. This bill will pass when the government wants it to pass.”–NDP finance critic Adrian Sala

Where does that leave the Tories? For the most part, it puts them pretty much where they were on budget day two weeks ago: out on the pre-election campaign trail, making multiple funding announcements every day while trying to defend a fiscal plan that many observers believe reeks of desperation.

Voting against the budget, as the opposition parties are clearly committed to doing, does allow the Tories to accuse their political foes of depriving Manitobans of a few additional dollars of tax relief at a time when inflation and high interest rates are wreaking havoc on the cost of living.

Although there was little in the way of hard evidence to support it, there had been some speculation the NDP and leader Wab Kinew might borrow a page from the 1999 playbook used by then-opposition leader, and soon-to-become premier, Gary Doer.

The New Democrats actually voted for the last budget tabled by the Gary Filmon-led PCs, in large part to avoid the allegation that they were against increased spending on health care and broad income tax cuts, the main features of the Tory fiscal plan.

In that instance, the strategy paid off handsomely for Doer. By the time the campaign started in the fall of 1999, almost no one cared the NDP had supported the Tory budget. And the Tories were denied the opportunity to accuse the New Democrats of opposing tax relief and improved health-care spending.

This time around, the foolishness of the Tory tax cuts has made it easy for opposition parties to let BITSA move as quickly as possible to proclamation without any heroic efforts to slow it down. Just as Cullen was desperate to bait the opposition parties into delaying passage of the budget bill, so too were opposition parties keen to encourage the finance minister to put BITSA into action as soon as possible.

Voting against the budget, as the opposition parties are clearly committed to doing, does allow the Tories to accuse their political foes of depriving Manitobans of a few additional dollars of tax relief at a time when inflation and high interest rates are wreaking havoc on the cost of living.

Good political parties, particularly ones that are governing, are always on the lookout for wedges, traps and cudgels to confuse and divide the opposition. These are the tools of the black art of politics that often inform the pointy ends of election campaign spears.

In this instance, however, we are reminded that a trap is only as good as the likelihood someone will fall prey to it.

And in this instance, it simply wasn’t a good enough trap.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.