An ongoing tariff war could decrease Saskatchewan’s revenue by $1.4 billion, meaning a $2.4-billion increase in debt could easily become $3.8 billion.

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The Saskatchewan government is increasing the debt by more than $6.5 million a day in this year’s provincial budget. That’s $6.5 million. Every. Single. Day.

The government is adding about $2.4 billion more to the debt, in total. The debt will reach $23.5 billion by the end of the year. That works out to about $18,800 per Saskatchewanian.

The government is calling the budget “balanced.” Only politicians could think that taking out billions of dollars in new loans with no plan to pay them back is balanced in any way.

Piling debt onto taxpayers without a plan to pay it back isn’t new for the Saskatchewan government. The government has increased the debt by 264 per cent, since 2015. The budget also predicts that the government is going to continue to borrow money in the future.

The government will increase the debt to $29.6 billion by 2029. That mountain of debt has meant billions of dollars wasted on debt interest payments. Over the previous decade, the government wasted almost $5 billion on interest payments.

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Taxpayers are on the hook for $878.4 million more in debt interest payments this year. Interest payments on the provincial debt will cost Saskatchewanians about $705 each this year.

Debt interest payments are the government’s fifth highest expense this year. Debt charges are costing taxpayers more this year than the government spends on transportation, economic development, community development or environment and natural resources.

But that doesn’t mean provincial politicians were working hard to cut spending and find savings for taxpayers. The budget increases spending by $909 million compared to the last budget. Government spending is up in 11 out of 12 departments.

Somehow, the Saskatchewan government is spending $61 million more this year on what it calls “general government.” If the government couldn’t find savings in “general government,” it’s clear that it wasn’t looking to save taxpayers money anywhere.

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