Sask. budget projects $819M deficit, no return to surplus until 2030

Saskatchewan expects to run deficits until the end of the decade, according to the 2026-27 provincial budget tabled by Finance Minister Jim Reiter on Wednesday.

The estimates are headlined by a projected $819.4-million deficit in the upcoming fiscal year and a newly forecasted $1.21-billion deficit for last year.

The province says it is targeting a return to the black in 2030-2031, when it projects a $124.1-million surplus driven by "sustained economic growth," program adjustments and a reduction in the provincial workforce through attrition and not filling vacant positions.

"We are not going to be going and handing out pink slips. This is if somebody retires or is willingly leaving their position to go somewhere else," said Reiter. "This doesn't affect face to face with the public."

The government is targeting a three per cent reduction in executive government and across Crown corporations. It hopes to get rid of approximately 300 positions in each over two years. 

Titled "Protecting Saskatchewan," the budget echoes a refrain that Premier Scott Moe and Reiter have repeated in the weeks before the budget — no tax increases or service cuts.

The province is keeping the small business tax at one per cent, spending $17.5 billion on capital projects over the next four years and promising the largest expansion of nurse practitioners in provincial history through its Patients First Health Care Plan.

The budget appears to be Reiter's attempt to go a different path than other provinces. In recent weeks, Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick have tabled record-breaking or near record-breaking budget deficits. While Saskatchewan’s deficit projection is large, it's nowhere close to the record $2.4-billion deficit projected in the province's 2020-2021 budget.

Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck blasted the Saskatchewan Party for failing to provide inflation relief and still delivering a deficit budget.

"There's nothing to offer a hint of hope or relief to those families that were already struggling," she told reporters.

She said that under Moe, Saskatchewan has accumulated three times the debt it did under former premier Brad Wall and twice as much as under former premier Grant Devine.

Beck suggested a temporary suspension of the provincial gas tax as the price of gasoline has skyrocketed in response to the war in the Middle East and the province has been reaping "windfall royalties."

Beck also criticized increases to fees for hunting and fishing licences and to power rates and automobile insurance deductibles.

The latest update to last year's fiscal budget, tabled alongside the new budget, paints a stark financial picture.