Here's what we could see in the 2023-24 provincial budget
CTV
The long awaited 2023-24 provincial budget will be unveiled in the Legislature on Wednesday afternoon, outlining the government’s taxation and spending plans for next year.
The long awaited 2023-24 provincial budget will be unveiled in the Legislature on Wednesday afternoon, outlining the government’s taxation and spending plans for next year.
While the details of the budget won’t be revealed until finance minister Donna Harpauer rises in the House around 2:15 p.m., political and economic experts weighed in on some possible directions the budget could take.
University of Regina (U of R) political scientist Jim Farney said he expects an interesting balance act in this year’s budget.
“Budgets always balance between priorities and we've seen the paper in the last week, kind of calls for resources to go to health and education,” he said. “Those aren't things you can just drop $100 million in for one year. Those are long-term commitments, and so those are the two things that I think they're going to have to balance."
Farney said he could see more long-term investments and bigger moves saved for the next budget.
“One thing they could do is kind of advance a couple of big infrastructure projects, but I don't expect it to be a really dramatic budget,” he said. “I don't expect that will be what we'll see this time.”
Although some of those bigger moves could be saved for next year’s budget, Farney said some issues could be pressing enough to appear in this year’s.