LOCAL VIEWPOINT — Let’s get fiscal: NDP’s strategy not adding up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/08/2023 (1027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Wednesday of this week, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew unveiled his party’s “fiscal strategy to grow Manitoba’s economy.” As part of that strategy, he promised that an NDP government led by him would adopt the economic forecast and fiscal outlook set out by the Stefanson government in this spring’s budget.

He also pledged to keep all of the Tories’ tax cuts (including the 50 per cent education property tax rebate), to continue to index provincial income tax brackets to inflation, and to balance the budget during his government’s first term in office. And he promised to not raise the provincial sales tax rate.

That’s a lot of commitments, but not all of them. Kinew also promised that a future NDP government would proceed with a search of the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran (estimated cost: $184 million) and would end chronic homelessness in the province, without saying what that would cost. He also said that “we can stop the cuts, invest in our schools and hospitals and keep life affordable so hard-working Manitobans can catch a break.”

There’s more still. On July 28, he promised up to $150 million for an expansion of the University of Manitoba’s medical school and, on June 12, he promised to create what he called a “universal” school nutrition program, at an estimated cost of $30 million annually.

That’s some significant new spending, but there’s even more. On May 23, Kinew told a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce audience that an NDP government would expand child care, promote immigration, and boost Manitoba’s mining sector by increasing critical mineral development.

On May 1, he promised to reinstate a previously cut $4.5-million fund that provided grants to medical students and incentives to physicians who set up a practice in Manitoba after graduation, and to also create a $9-million doctor recruitment fund. On March 19, he committed to providing free birth control for all Manitobans, at an estimated cost of $11 million per year.

That’s just a partial list of NDP spending commitments. It doesn’t include the price of promises made to hire more civil servants, health professionals and teachers, nor the cost of opening and operating safe injection sites and addiction treatment centres.

By now, you’ve probably spotted the issue, and it isn’t just a money problem. It’s a credibility problem.

Kinew promises to stick to the Stefanson government’s latest budget, but he and his NDP colleagues criticized and voted against that same budget just weeks ago. He promises to keep all the Tory tax cuts, not raise the PST and spend millions of dollars on a variety of high-cost items (he still has seven weeks to make even more spending promises), yet he says he will balance the budget in his first term as premier.

You don’t need a calculator to realize that there’s something wrong with the NDP math. Kinew can’t balance his budget if he spends all the money the Stefanson Tories budgeted for, and hundreds of millions more on top of that in order to pay for his own promises.

The only way the NDP leader can keep his fiscal commitments is if he cuts or reduces items from the Stefanson spending plan, and replaces them with items from the NDP plan.

If that’s what he plans to do, he should say so, in clear language. That would mean telling government departments, local governments, school divisions, organizations, agencies and community groups that they might not get the funding they have been promised by the Stefanson government if voters elect him as premier.

Of course, all of this discussion rests on the assumption that Kinew genuinely intends to keep his spending commitments, balance the budget and not raise taxes. If Manitoba voters have any memory of past election campaigns, however, they know it’s an assumption they shouldn’t be making.

That’s because there is a long history of opposition parties abandoning spending promises after they are elected, by simply saying that the financial situation is worse than the previous government claimed or by arguing that circumstances have changed and require a revised plan.

Manitobans also remember that the previous NDP leader promised to not raise the PST rate, and then did exactly that.

Some might argue that Kinew and his NDP colleagues are being unfairly held to a higher standard than the free-spending Stefanson Tories. That may be true, but it’s a political truism that opposition parties only become governments if they can convince voters they are a better choice than the current government.

In the context of the 2023 Manitoba election, that reality requires Kinew to convince enough Manitoba voters in enough ridings that his government would do a better job managing the province’s finances — and also its health, education and justice systems – than the Stefanson Tories.

It’s not an impossible task, but it is made more difficult by fiscal promises that don’t add up.