NDP spin doesn’t square with fiscal facts

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/11/2024 (649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Followers of Manitoba politics are familiar with the accuracy of the phrase “history is written by the victors.”

A memorable example was the NDP’s accusation, made following the 1999 election of the Gary Doer government, that the previous Progressive Conservative government had fired 1,000 nurses and 700 teachers.

For more than 13 years, those claims were the cornerstone of the NDP’s “dark days of the Filmon government” narrative. They figured prominently in the 2003, 2008 and 2011 election campaigns — all won by the NDP — and remained largely unchallenged by both the media and Progressive Conservatives until I showed in 2014 that there was no factual basis for those claims (see Attack ad is baseless, Feb. 12, 2014).

Despite those assertions being false, they were accepted as fact by many Manitobans because they were repeated again and again, and nobody seriously questioned their veracity.

The strategy worked for the NDP during the Doer-Selinger years, and our new NDP government is attempting a similar approach in order to handicap the opposition Tories from being in a viable position to challenge for power in the next provincial election.

For example, the NDP claim that the previous PC government mismanaged the province’s finances, leaving a larger deficit than anticipated. Last December, Manitobans were told that the projected deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year had ballooned to $1.612 billion — more than four times higher than the $363-million deficit projected ion Budget 2023. This past September, the final deficit figure was pegged at $1.97 billion.

In the media release that accompanied the final numbers, Finance Minister Adrien Sala said that “Our government has inherited a fiscal mess from the previous government,” and that, “The path ahead to recover from the previous government’s reckless spending and mismanagement will be challenging but we are committed to stabilizing the province’s finances.”

That’s strong spin, but it doesn’t square with the facts.

The Tories were only in power for the first half of the fiscal year; they can’t be blamed for NDP spending decisions during the second half. For example, $104 million of the deficit relates to the cost of the Wab Kinew government’s gas tax holiday.

Second, the province’s debt-servicing costs increased by $193 million, due primarily to higher borrowing costs. Third, more than $58 million in unbudgeted tax credits were paid out due to a higher uptake level for the Film and Video Production Tax Credit.

Fourth, a significant portion of the deficit — $622 million — is because Budget 2023 projected that Manitoba Hydro would earn a profit of $450 million during the 2023-24 fiscal year, but instead incurred a $172-million loss due to unexpected drought conditions.

Fifth, the deficit figure also includes the $530-million settlement to compensate children impacted by the Doer government’s decision to claw back federal funds earmarked for kids in care. Although the settlement was only approved weeks ago and has not yet been paid out, the NDP booked the $530-million payment as a 2023-24 expense, instead of for the current fiscal year.

Subtract the $104-million gas tax loss, the $530-million settlement, the $193 million in borrowing costs, the $622-million Hydro loss and the $58 million in tax credits — none of which were the Tories’ fault — and the deficit is reduced to just $463 million.

That doesn’t square with the NDP’s portrait of the Tories as fiscal fumblers, does it?

Another example over NDP “overspin” is the claim that the huge deficit is also due to the previous Tory government not budgeting the funds needed to pay for the cost of new collective agreements with public sector unions. Page 13 of the year-end financial report makes clear, however, that $949 million had in fact been set aside to pay for those agreements.

Yet another example is the NDP’s accusation that there’s no money to pay for the nine new schools the Tories promised. The (approximately) $400 million spent by the current government on its gas tax holiday would have paid for all those schools, with millions left over for critical repairs of other schools.

Those are just three examples, but they make the point: Using truthful information to expose an opponent’s faults is a valid political practice, but fudging facts in order to float false claims is not. It can destroy the attacker’s credibility and cast the target as a victim of unfair tactics.

The Greg Selinger government learned that lesson the hard way. The Kinew government’s spinners may be making the same mistake.

Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon.

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