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Halfway through the fiscal year, the provincial government is projecting a deficit 35 times larger than the surplus it budgeted for in the spring.
The fiscal update showed a $427 million deficit forecast for the year — a $79 million increase from the first quarter update, and significantly higher than the $12 million surplus at budget.
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The total gross debt for the province is also forecast to rise by $962 million dollars for the year, a 2.5 per cent increase from budget, to sit at $39.3 billion.
Expenses are up 2.5 per cent, about $521 million — it’s $295 million more for public safety to deal with the response to the severe wildfire season, $250 million more for health care and to pay for more workers and overtime to staff surge beds, and $114 million more in pension adjustments, which were reported at the first quarter update.
Finance Minister Jim Reiter said there are economic pressures the province is facing.
“Obviously, we’d like to be in a balanced situation but I have to be realistic, too. There’s not a balanced budget across this country right now because of economic headwinds,” he said.
“We are in the best position of any province in the country, we’ve got lots of work to do head of us, there’s going to be lots of issues to deal with but … all the indicators that the bond rating agencies look at, we are at or near the top in all of them so we’re going to make every effort to stay there.”
Finance Minister Jim Reiter presents the budget on March 18, 2025. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
He said Saskatchewan has among the best deficit per capita and debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada.
According to Reiter, pointing out these economic factors, despite the budget deficit, wasn’t sugar-coating the results.
“A lot of the economic factors we’re dealing with — most of them in fact — aren’t provincial issues, they’re geopolitical issues, they’re Canada-wide, North America-wide, worldwide. And when you have an export-based economy like us, you’re susceptible to … trade issues around the world,” he said.
When it comes to the tariffs situation, there were export declines of $136 million for agricultural products, $121 million for forestry products, and $94 million in metal products. However, those declines were offset by increases in mining product exports.
Overall, there was a $1.4 billion decrease in the value of Saskatchewan’s exports, nearly all from changes in the price of oil and changes in the exchange rate with the U.S. dollar.
Reiter said he was optimistic for the province’s future, but said it will probably be very difficult to get the budget back to balance, saying he didn’t foresee it happening even in the next budget.
“If we can get through some of the silliness with trade issues with our major trading partners, if we can get by that, we are very, very well positioned for the future,” said Reiter.
NDP finance critic Trent Wotherspoon. (Lisa Schick/ 980 CJME)
NDP calls provincial government’s numbers ‘nonsense’
Trent Wotherspoon, the Sask. NDP’s finance critic, repeated his criticism of the spring budget on Tuesday, saying he doesn’t think it was worth the paper it was printed on.
Wotherspoon gave a list of government shortcomings, saying it failed to budget properly for wildfires or similar emergencies, failed to account for tariff impacts, and failed to account for the budget hole presented by the province no longer collecting the industrial carbon tax.
“They pegged oil prices recklessly high to prop up their failed and dishonest budget,” he said, and called the provincial government’s numbers “nonsense,” saying they came from a government that isn’t willing to be honest with people.
When asked about the economic indicators the finance minister held up, Wotherspoon said it was an example of the minister shrugging off his poor performance.
“What’s baked into that number is a whole bunch of wasted money, a whole bunch of squandered dollars, it should be accepted by no one for a government to waste dollars in the way that this government has.”
Wotherspoon said the Sask. Party has failed to balance the budget in even the best year, so he doesn’t trust that it will get back to balance.
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