Meili calling for postponed budget in wake of coronavirus-related market drop

With markets and oil prices taking a plunge in reaction to coronavirus in countries around the world, the leader of Saskatchewan’s NDP wants the government to postpone the budget and take another look at its numbers.

“We’ve got an economy that is crashing around our ears around the world, and that’s going to have huge repercussions in Saskatchewan,” Ryan Meili said Tuesday.

On Monday, the province’s finance minister, Donna Harpauer, said the 2020-21 budget was already finished and the oil price drop to $33.49 per barrel wasn’t factored in.

Meili said without factoring the large change in markets into the numbers and projections, the budget unveiled on March 18 will be “a fiction.”

“If they put out a budget with the projections from last month, they’re lying to the people about what our finances look like,” said Meili.

The choices made in the budget make a big difference, said Meili, and without having a clear picture of the finances, Meili said the government could end up overspending in the first quarter or putting money where it shouldn’t be.

“Right now, with everything going on around us, we need to make sure that this year’s budget is actually a real budget, that it’s not a work of fiction, and that the choices that are made … which have huge impacts on people’s everyday lives, that those are made wisely with the most information possible,” said Meili.

Meili pointed out that, shortly after Scott Moe was chosen as leader of the Sask. Party and therefore the new premier, he delayed the budget by two weeks so he could get his footing.

“When it was convenient for him, it made perfect sense to delay it,” Meili said. “Why would we not postpone it now when it’s a much more pressing matter?”

Premier says NDP is “fear-mongering”

Moe said unequivocally that the provincial budget will be released next week, as planned.

“We’re not going to make panicky decisions, knee-jerk reactions, to what has to date been a couple of days of variable market forces, if you will,” said Moe.

Moe said the budget is based on projections for the entire year ahead, not just a day or week.

“It’ll be a budget that has taken into account to the best of our ability the market conditions that we foresee annualized out over the course of the next year,” said Moe.

If the market does stay down, Moe said the appropriate time to reassess will be in the first quarter, after a period of time when “there has been some variability and has been lower revenue items.”

In the house, Health Minister Jim Reiter said the NDP was fear-mongering with the questions about coronavirus, and the premier agrees.

“This should not be politicized. The NDP are attempting to do that, they are fear-mongering with respect to their questions in the house and the media, and they just quite simply shouldn’t be doing it,” said Moe.