On bright ideas

One of the key proposals worth highlighting from the Saskatchewan NDP's policy review is a Bright Futures Fund which will ensure that one-time resource revenues are reserved for the longer-term benefit of the province - making for an ideal contrast against the short-sightedness of the Sask Party. But don't take my word for it when even Bruce Johnstone is on board:

Another NDP bright idea worth looking at is the Bright Futures Fund, which was contained in a draft policy paper released this week that will form the party's 2011 election campaign platform.

The Bright Futures Fund would be modelled after Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which has been investing a portion of the country's North Sea oil and gas production for the last 15 years.

The fund now has $518 billion in investments, or one per cent of global stocks, and allows the Norwegian government to spend about four per cent of its value every year on services for its citizens.

Alberta's 35-year-old Heritage Fund is another example of a 'legacy fund' that collects about 30 per cent of the province's non-renewable resource revenues and has generated about $32 billion in investment income since 1976.

The Bright Futures Fund will "maximize the benefits of our non-renewable resource revenues for current and future generations of Saskatchewan citizens," the NDP says.

The key word is here "future" generations. As stewards of the province's resource riches, we have no right to spend non-renewable resource revenues as if they were ongoing sources of revenue. By definition, they're not. They're sales of assets that should remain on the province's balance sheet, not shovelled into the maw of government spending.

Therefore, we should save a portion, say one-third, of those resource revenues in some sort of fund to be invested solely to generate income for future generations.
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It's not only good public policy; it's the right thing to do.