Mandryk: Saskatchewan surplus budget instant classic work of fiction

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Like Finance Minister Jim Reiter’s 2025-26 budget, what might be considered the “greatest” work of fiction is rather subjective.

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War and Peace? There is a trade war, but, evidently, Reiter is opting for the appeasement approach of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and his fanciful notion of “peace in our time.”

Unlike every other recent provincial budget — including Alberta’s budget that examined three scenarios on tariff impacts and settled on the middle one still requiring a $4-billion trade-war contingency fund that will still produce multiple years of deficits — Saskatchewan requested nothing.

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“With the uncertainty around the length of any potential trade action … this remains a highly dynamic situation,” states the Saskatchewan budget put to bed on Feb. 18 without consideration for vulnerable industries like steel already hit with U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs.

Or as Premier Scott Moe put it Wednesday when he spoke about a 2025-26 budget with record borrowing: “Why would we (borrow) money and what amount?”

Don Quixote? Well, this Saskatchewan Party government is fond of tilting at windmills … including pronouns of choice, anything to do with the soon-to-be-gone carbon tax, electric cars and, of course, windmills.

By contrast, it does love oil and is predicting it will average US$71 a barrel (West Texas Intermediate was US$66.62 a barrel on budget eve), notwithstanding Trump’s potential 10 per cent oil tariffs and as he encourages the American oil industry to “drill, baby, drill.”

Yet they predict oil and gas revenue will increase to $1.1 billion, as overall Saskatchewan budget revenues soar past $21 billion — $648 million more than the province ultimately raked in last year.

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But even as it was manufacturing this rather sunny storyline, the budget admits $1.4 billion in provincial revenue is “at risk” with no definitive explanation of what’s at risk.

Is it potash royalty revenue the government now suggests will increase this year by $119 million, or 19.8 per cent, from the 2024-25 third-quarter forecast, even though vertically integrated companies like Mosaic or Nutrien might possibly use transfer pricing to beat Trump’s 10 per cent tariffs by selling in the U.S.?

Is it taxation revenue that it says will increase by $366.7 million this year, despite falling stock markets on both sides of the border and falling GDPs in both countries that could similarly decrease oil demand and price?

However, as tough as it is to meet revenue projections, it will be even more impossible to limit spending to $21 billion (including a record $4.6 billion in capital infrastructure) and still make good on the Sask. Party’s October campaign promises.

Through all this, Reiter conceives a seemingly unbelievable $12-million surplus … although he cautions against taking that surplus too seriously.

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“This is just a snapshot in time,” Reiter told reporters. “It (a tariff war) will push us into a deficit. We are very open about that.”

So wouldn’t it have been more believable if the government postponed the budget until April and came in with a proper contingency fund and a deficit that even the pre-tariff, Sask. Party election campaign was predicting?

Who knows? Miracles can happen.

But given all the unknowns and things never explained, this year’s Saskatchewan budget could become one of the greatest works of fiction ever penned.

Consider the telltale signs:

• Wednesday, the government also released the 2024-25 budget third-quarter update that saw the pre-election $273-million deficit balloon to $661 million as of Jan. 1. The 2025-26 budget could be even more dramatic.
• Financial charges (the interest on our credit card bill from past deficits, from which no government can hide or escape) have grown $111 million from last year to more than a billion dollars, annually.
• Similarly inescapable, total public debt will grow by $3.5 billion to $38 billion by budget year end.
• The 2025-26 budget claims it will spend less in health, education and agriculture than was forecasted by the end of 2025-26, while simultaneously boasting massive increases from what was budgeted last year.
• This was the result of massive out-of-budget special warrant spending, foreshadowing what will likely happen again this year.
• Yet none of this sly wording and maneuvering explains how we meet higher teachers salaries with two years of backpay increases — let alone the needs of 204,067 Saskatchewan K-12 students (20,063 more than when Moe came to office in 2018).
• And how will we meet the commitment to 450,000 operations performed in the next four years? Or agricultural needs? Or the tariffs impact?

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Where Reiter’s budget takes us is to Pema Chödrön’s fictional work: When Things Fall Apart: Advice for Difficult Times.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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