‘Dumpster fire’: Sask. provincial budget draws mixed reactions

The provincial government unveiled its 2025-26 budget Wednesday afternoon, drawing mixed reactions from interest groups.

While the budget includes tax savings for families and investments into health care and education, some are saying the government funding in their sectors isn’t high enough.

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Listen to Finance Minister Jim Reiter and NDP finance critic Trent Wotherspoon on The Evan Bray Show:

Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation

The province has budgeted $3.5 billion for the Ministry of Education, a 5.5 per cent increase from last year. That includes $130 million for the new teacher bargaining agreement and to address classroom complexity.

Samantha Becotte, president of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation, said the increase is a step in the right direction, but questioned whether the increase is enough.

“You never get everything you want out of a budget, whether it’s personal or provincial, but we want to make sure that students are supported in their schools,” Becotte said.

The union head said she wants to see Saskatchewan back in first place when it comes to per-student funding.

“We’ve seen some catch-up in terms of those numbers over the last couple of years, we’re still about $1,800 per student behind on where we were when we were first in the country,” Becotte said.

Saskatchewan School Boards Association

Shawn Davidson, president of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, said this year’s education budget is reasonable.

He said investment falls short, but was pleased the province recognizes the financial pressure on Saskatchewan’s 27 school boards.

“The operating side falls a little bit short of investment that would allow divisions to invest in a bunch of additional supports for students,” he said.

“But we are pleased that it has recognized our key cost drivers and divisions should be able to, in their local context, make some decisions that are maybe a little easier than they have in some of the last few years.”

Shawn Davidson said the government has recognized the key cost drivers that school divisions are facing.  (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

Health-care union

Despite the Ministry of Health’s budget for the fiscal year adding up to a record $8.1 billion, is an increase of 6.4 per cent over the previous budget, a health-care union leader said staffing issues weren’t adequately addressed.

Linda Renkas, vice president of CUPE Local 5430, said there’s nothing in the budget for health-care workers.

“We hear a lot of talk about recruitment, a lot of talk about infrastructure, yet what are we going to do with this infrastructure when we can’t currently staff the facilities that are operational right now?” Renkas asked.

Linda Renkas said health-care workers are going to be “very upset” with this budget. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

She cited the Urgent Care Centre in Regina, which still isn’t open 24 hours a day, and said she feels like the government is getting ahead of itself when it comes to promises of new facilities.

The health budget includes funding for new urgent care centres in Moose Jaw, Prince Albert and North Battleford, along with money for additional urgent care centres in both Regina and Saskatoon.

“Obviously we want to see services in our rural (areas). We want to see services provided to the citizens of the province, but there has to be a meaningful plan on how to staff it,” she said.

“I would have liked to see more (money) to recruitment, more money put towards the workers that are in the trenches right now.”

Renkas said a focus on retention and keeping workers in Saskatchewan was completely left out of the budget.

“It’s a dumpster fire,” Renkas said.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Gage Haubrich, prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, was sounding the alarm about Saskatchewan’s growing debt after the budget was tabled.

“I think the most important number for taxpayers to know in this budget is $2.4 billion, because that’s how much more the government is adding to the debt, saddling taxpayers with the costs of and increasing their costs and hurting them down the line,” he explained.

Gage Haubrich of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation raised concerns about the province’s debt levels. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

Premier Scott Moe ran his last election campaign on affordability, but Haubrich said the added debt is going to cost taxpayers.

“We’re seeing almost a billion dollars in interest payments coming from that increase in debt,” he said.

“The government said they want to improve affordability, but you can’t improve affordability when you’re settling the cost of debt onto taxpayers like this.”

City of Saskatoon

More money from the province to help Saskatoon’s drug and homelessness issues was welcomed by Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block.

She said she’s “grateful” that municipal revenue sharing went up by six per cent.

Mayor Cynthia Block said Saskatoon is one of the fasting-growing cities in Canada, which puts pressure on the local government to be able to provide enough support for the growing community. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

“It’s an enormous help in a time where we are living with a lot of uncertainty in the world,” Block said.

“Knowing that we have that revenue coming to our cities to provide basic services, it’s a relief, and I’m grateful for that.”

Block added that she was pleased to learn that planning for four new schools can start moving forward.

—with files from 980 CJME’s Nicole Garn