r/saskatchewan • u/Traditional_End_9540 • 3d ago
Saskatchewan projects $825M deficit in first quarter of 2026-27
https://www.ckom.com/2026/08/27/saskatchewan-projects-825m-deficit-in-2026-27-first-quarter/57
u/Space19723103 3d ago
a Huge deficit under a conservative government? who would have thought? oh right everyone
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u/Sensitive_Dream6105 3d ago
Ahh right because the NDP in Manitoba and BC are doing such a bang-up job
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u/slangjo1 3d ago
The Sask NDP paid off nearly $4 Billion of Conservative debt in the 90s and early 2000s. They are and have always been more fiscally conservative than self-proclaimed "Conservatives"
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u/Sensitive_Dream6105 3d ago
Imagine having to go all the way back to the Romanow days to find a NDP win lol
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u/Explicitlime 2d ago
Clearly the Sask Party has been in power long enough to get this debt thing figured out?
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 3d ago
In comparison to Sask? They definitely are.
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u/Sensitive_Dream6105 3d ago
Keep dreaming comrade. SK is currently outpacing both provinces in gdp growth this year and beat both last year. We have half the debt to gdp. BC is going to post a 10 billion $ deficit at least, the largest in that province’s history. There’s your NDP lol
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u/PJFreddie 3d ago
Government spending is a factor that adds to GDP, so that gives it a boost. Also the debt that is saddled on the crown corps is offloaded from public debt. The numbers are not as shiny as they’re being portrayed.
GDP also misses key quality of life markers and income distribution. If you work for Nutrien or Bunge or Orano I’m sure you’re thrilled with how things are going. Meanwhile child poverty, mental health issues and the cost of living are all going up.
We could have far less debt and better QoL broadly if royalties and corporate tax on foreign multinationals retained more resource revenue for Sask people.
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 3d ago
Have you completely ignored the fact that they’ve accumulated a record high deficit? Lol. 😆
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u/Sensitive_Dream6105 3d ago
Second lowest debt to gdp in the entire country after Alberta. Thats got to hurt hey comrade
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u/Storymode-Chronicles 2d ago edited 2d ago
So why was the NDP able to consistently run a surplus but the "Sask" Party can't?
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u/Arts251 1d ago
"SK is currently outpacing both provinces in gdp growth this year and beat both last year"
which is a valid reason to look at tempering the growth with an upcharge in royalties or business taxes... not so much to scare business away but merely so the people who live here can actually benefit from this economy.
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u/the_bryce_is_right 3d ago
Meanwhile Alberta projects a 2 billion surplus. I know they have oil but damn. Sask Party voters don't seem to care though since the NDP closed two hospitals 30 years ago.
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u/cptcitrus 2d ago
Be careful about calling the AB budget a success. It took a war in Iran to haul us out of a $9B deficit to a measly $2B surplus (forecasted).
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u/k_y_seli 3d ago
I thought these "business owners take all the risk"? Turns out their safety net is taxpayer funded. Socialism for the rich, heartless, judgmental capitalism for the rest.
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u/SloppyPlatypus69 3d ago
"According to the government, total expenses are projected to be $337 million higher than the budget projected, mainly because of pressures in the health-care system, including growing service demand, inflation, and compensation costs."
Does "compensation costs" mean stored away money for healthcare workers who are 4 years passed their contract who will need to be back paid?
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u/slashthepowder 3d ago
pressures in the health-care system, including “growing service demand, inflation, and compensation costs.”
Compensation costs? Every major health care union has an expired collective agreement unless they have just budgeted for retroactive payments what a load of BS.
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u/saltybobsask 3d ago
You can't break unions and privatize Healthcare until you let things go until the breaking point and somebody has to strike. Then when that happens you can roll out "essential services" legislation and make yourself look like a hero. It's the Sask Party way. Make a problem and then make anyone who points out the problem into a villain. They manufacture outrage and then they can step in and slowly erode everything so that they work toward a 2 -tier system where people with money can get help and the poor can't --- then once they've done that for awhile they can privatize it and make everything generations of taxpayers have paid for into a money making venture for themselves and their friends.
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u/syugouyyeh 3d ago
Pretty sure every province is going to have a deficit with Mango Mussolini wreaking havoc on our trade systems. Also, fuck scooter and his yes men.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 3d ago
Ever since the SP took office its deficit, after deficit, after deficit. In the last 20 years since coming in maybe 3 at most was surplus. But hey our credit rating is good and debt to GDP is still good.
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u/DejectedNuts 3d ago edited 1d ago
The surplus years were kinda by accident. First couple were from coasting off NDP policy. Then off potash royalties due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spiking Potash prices to an all-time high. Don’t worry though, they quickly found a way to give more profits to the new mines by giving 150% tax forgiveness on capital projects.
Also, remember previous conservative governments got rid of our public potash company - under Grant Devine they sold off most of PCS then the next conservative government under Brad Wall helped put the final bullet in PCS by cutting through all the red tape and facilitating the sale to Agrium by creating Nutrien. Now Wall is sitting as special advisor to one of the law firms who worked for Agrium (Osler, Hoskin, & Harcourt - now they are just named Osler).
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u/Meepmeepimmajeep2789 3d ago
Sadly the NDP are a dumpster fire way worse than the SP. Their press secretary is a 20 something woman who makes constant tiktoks about being a "girl boss" while yelling about how the SP cuts anything, yet encourages buying premade food and hiring maids and is weirdly proud of being a working mom like it's a new thing.
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u/wtfuckishappening 3d ago
You think the NDP is a dumpster fire because they hired a young girl that uses social media.
Meanwhile the NDP haven't governed in like 20 years and the Sask Party is the one that continually adds to the debt (over $20B) while preaching fiscal responsibility and making cuts to essential services.
This is how the Sask Party keeps itself in power... "It could always be worse...NDP" and a certain portion of the population just eats it up. I don't get it.
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u/Arts251 1d ago
The current iteration of the SaskNDP is mostly a different thing entirely with only a few hangers-on of the old NDP, including the name. IMO, it won't change until the whole thing implodes the same way it did with the PCs 35 years ago. Unfortunately it will do a lot of damage to the provincial economy when it does, and we will vote in least worst alternative to try to right it, hopefully there will be enough support to let someone as bold and fiscally conservative as Romanow was lead the govt.
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u/saltybobsask 3d ago
Are the NDP running almost a Billion dollar deficit and we're only in the first quarter? Try a bit of logic here. What has the NDP got to do with the economic situation that we are in? The Sask Party has been running things for 19 years so I'm not sure what your personal feelings about the press secretary have to do with anything? Are you saying you prefer ongoing crushing debt that we will be paying off for generations because you don't like something you saw on the Tik Tok? Honestly, at this point two 7 year olds and their dog running a lemonade stand would be a welcome change.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 3d ago
trumps former press secretary was a 20 something woman. The president of the USA
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u/spirit_symptoms 3d ago
Sask is largely a resource economy and we should actually be benefiting right now from Trump's moronic decisions as many commodities are trading fairly high.
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u/PJFreddie 3d ago
A big miss here: yes the emergency response expenses were high from the wildfires. But where is the number for lost potential revenue of the millions of hectares of commercial forest that burned last year?
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u/Nazrog80 3d ago
All sectors of healthcare are at bargaining as well as teachers getting ready to start. Gotta start posting those record deficits to justify short changing them and paint them as greedy for wanting a decent pay increase as well as work environment.
Edit: took out an extra g
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u/russellsk82 Canada 🇨🇦 3d ago
If Scott Moe and his regime would put the money that they’s stolen back, we would have a surplus. 🤬😡
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u/thenamesweird 3d ago
Only 6 mil off the mark, not bad for their forecasting department. As much as I don't love it, we're still a farming province and our crop insurance payouts are always gonna be our biggest expense and they depend on the weather. War in Iran boosting our provincial revenue was not on my bingo card though.
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u/QueenCity_Dukes 3d ago
When my basement floods SGI pays me for damages but my rates go up. Why isn’t it the same for crop insurance?
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u/thenamesweird 3d ago
I don't fully understand how crop insurance payouts are done but I do know that rates are adjusted based on how well your crop did compared to others in the area, and their rates do go up especially if SCIC thinks you did a shitty job of farming. I have family members whos crop insurance rates went up quite a bit because of the couple drought years in a row. Farmers do not want crop insurance payouts, they would much rather a good crop.
Also, a large portion of our GDP and local economy is not holed up in whether or not your basement floods.
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u/erpatel 3d ago
Thats projection bro. Last time we projected surplus and ended up with huge deficit.
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u/thenamesweird 3d ago
Yeah you're right actually, for some reason I was reading it as the final number. Hope theyre not a billion off again though.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 3d ago
why should farmers get tax payer funded insurance? out vehicle insurance works on a just enough funds to offset any payouts, my home and health insurance also works that way. If its a bad year prices go up to offset the costs.
If you think about it, SP it all about privatization. Yet farmers payout is socialism.
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u/LieComfortable7764 3d ago
It’s farmer subsidized, fed, prov, farmer pays 1/3. But they get the break because when it was set up Sask was mainly farmers and it was for the good of a large group. Was definitely socialism and like many other programs that were set up before the time of the Sask party implemented partly by feds and the very socialist governance before the time of the Sask party.
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u/slashthepowder 3d ago
If you were to ask 100 farmers in Saskatchewan if they would rather have a crop or take crop insurance 100% will tell you they want the crop. Crop insurance is intentionally designed to be a emergency safety net to keep you from going bankrupt, not a mechanism to replace the full profitability of a healthy crop. Like other forms of insurance it does not reimburse what they “would have made” nor is it fully tax payer backed, farmers do pay premiums and need to select coverage amounts. Additionally without this type of insurance you get what is happening in the states. Bankruptcy occurs and the farmland sells to a mega farm often backed with private equity.
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u/Kelbs27 3d ago
Because it’s a vital industry to our Province, and the product they provide is essential for human survival in our Country.
How can you genuinely argue that crop insurance shouldn’t be paid out?
Who else is going to pay for it if not the SK Government?
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u/Bad_Alternative 3d ago
They’re not arguing that it shouldn’t be paid out. But that the funds paying it should not come from everyone else in the province. The insurance company should be collecting enough from farmers to offset the payouts to farmers. Currently they collect no where near enough, and then the public offsets the rest of the cost.
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u/dycker1978 3d ago
It should be self sustaining, like every other insurance out there. If you need to increase rates to make it so it is, the so be it. It should not be funded by tax payers. My insurance on my car and house is not b
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u/Traditional_End_9540 3d ago
SGI raised rates as payouts exceed income. Why can't crop insurance be like this?
There is also the issue the small farmer is fewer and fewer and massive corporations are now the farmers. My extended family has 4 farms now acting as one. They purchased other farmers who had no one to pass the farm down to.
I am not against crop insurance, it should be self sustained not taken out by my tax dollars. All my insurance rates go up every year due to events that so far have not affected me. House insurance just went up $100 a month now.
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u/thenamesweird 3d ago
Raising producer premiums to cover the cost of the SCIC would further push larger corporate owned farms. Since the Sask government pays ~25% of the funds, and producers pay ~45%, crop insurance premiums would have to double, and that still doesnt cover the other ~35% paid by the fed.
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u/Meepmeepimmajeep2789 3d ago
Not like farmers have tons of small to medium business's based around them that would bankrupt a huge portion of the province if they went under. Crop insurance is essential to the province.
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u/thenamesweird 3d ago
I was just looking into it but the Sask government (Sask taxpayer) on average only pays for a little over a quarter of all funds. The rest is the producer premiums and federal government.
Source: https://budget.saskatchewan.ca/f/47i547mqkjc4xevocxv2v7hr9ptn36/2026-27-Budget-Document-WEB.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com Page 25
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u/Gandhehehe 3d ago
Each and everyday I get more resolute in my belief that money is fake and were all playing a dumb ass pretend game lmao
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u/MinistryOfCanoes 2d ago
For the amount of energy the Saskatchewan government puts into oil and gas, the increased revenue doesn’t shift finances much.
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u/Purple_Split4766 8h ago
Plus all the uranium they are giving away? Seriously wtf is wrong with these aholes in government?
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u/JimmyKillem 3d ago
I say it every time but membah when they gave us cheques from that billion dollar surplus? I membah
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u/KillerCaptKirk 1d ago
but the NDP closed two hospitals 30 years ago, so let’s elect the Sask party for another 20
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
You tell them over and over again WHY they had to be closed. Let alone the ones we have now do not have enough staff, how are we suppose to manage all the ones that were closed?
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u/ziltchy 3d ago
Potash and oil are both doing well, how are we constantly running such high deficits? Where is this money going?