Manitoba government's cost of mailing out cheques continues to rise

The cost of printing cheques and putting them in the mail -- not including the cost of the benefits themselves -- seems to be quickly surpassing $1 million for the Manitoba government.

The Manitoba government has been mailing out cheques to people in recent years to help with issues ranging from property taxes to inflation to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And the cost of printing those cheques and putting them in the mail -- not including the cost of the benefits themselves -- seems to be quickly surpassing $1 million.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Progressive Conservative government announced it would issue $200 cheques to all seniors in the province who filed an income tax return in 2018. The province expected roughly 225,000 seniors to receive the money.

The cost of printing those cheques, putting them in envelopes, inserting a written message from then-premier Brian Pallister and sending them in the mail totalled just over $247,000, show documents obtained by The Canadian Press under a freedom of information request that took 2 1/2 years for the government to fulfil.

The following year, the government announced it would issue rebate cheques to property owners who pay education taxes on their property.

There were 456,168 cheques issued in 2021 and 438,331 cheques issued in 2022, and the average cost of producing and mailing each cheque was $1.15, the provincial finance department said in a recent written statement. That adds up to just over $1 million in production and mailing costs for those two years.

Another round of property tax rebate cheques is due this year.