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But NDP promised no new taxes, Tories say

By: Larry Kusch

Thursday, Apr. 19, 2012 at 11:09 AM | Comments: 1

A statement made during a debate in last fall's election campaign is coming back to haunt Premier Greg Selinger.

The opposition reminded Selinger Wednesday he promised not to raise taxes during a leaders' radio forum on Sept. 12.

According to a partial transcript provided by the Tories, the premier said:

"Our plan is a five-year plan to ensure that we have future prosperity without any tax increases and we'll deliver on that. We're ahead of schedule right now."

Selinger broke that promise when his finance minister, Stan Struthers, handed down his budget on Tuesday, Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen said.

"They broke the fundamental promise of the election campaign, which was not to raise taxes."

In his first budget as finance minister, Struthers broadened the reach of the provincial sales tax and raised cigarette and fuel taxes.

He also hiked a number of service fees, including those for registering vehicles and obtaining birth and marriage certificates.

The increased taxes and levies are expected to raise more than $200 million a year.

The Tories seized on the tax increases during question period Wednesday, saying they would pose a hardship for many Manitoba families.

McFadyen said the NDP laid the groundwork for tax hikes by spending excessively over several years.

"Eventually the chickens come home to roost, and they've started to come home to roost in this budget."

Meanwhile, Selinger repeatedly deflected questions about the broken promise Wednesday when confronted by reporters.

"We have broadened our tax base," he allowed at one point.

"We acknowledge we've generated more revenues in Manitoba to be responsive to the needs that we had to address to protect front-line services and to rebuild infrastructure while keeping Manitoba affordable."

Selinger said the 2.5 cent a litre gas tax hike, set to take effect May 1, would be spent improving roads and bridges.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

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Posted by:YvetteKirk

April 19, 2012 at 4:30 PM

Here's the really scary part. Even with raising an extra $200M with another tax grab, the extra $270M in funding the feds gave them and with raiding the rainy day fund for $56M they are still projecting, rather optimistically, a $460M deficit. They are promising a $23M surplus in two years time so hang on to your wallets because this is just the easy part. Next year will be the hard part.<br /><br />BTW How is it that they were complaining about not enough health care funding from the feds because they gave them a 6% increase but they only increased HC spending 3.5%? They must have siphoned off the rest for other more important pet programs and handouts for their base which I note is pretty much unaffected by bthis budget. I guess they were lying when they said that the feds were not giving them enough? Not at all surprised though since they also said they were not going to raise taxes. <br /><br />

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