Well said

Simon Enoch provides the definitive response to the Sask Party's budget:

Despite an obvious and acute housing crisis, this budget offered a paltry $1.7 million for two new affordable housing initiatives while the immediate need for new housing in the province is approximately 3000 units. For those who cannot wait for the construction of new housing, no relief was forthcoming to prevent the regular rent increases that seem to have become the norm in our province.

Despite ranking dead last among the provinces in child-care space, the budget offered to fund the creation of only 500 new child-care spaces when the need is closer to 5000. Currently, Saskatchewan has licensed child-care spots for only 9.1 per cent of children between the ages of zero and five, compared to the 20.3 per cent national average. While we applaud the government for committing to the creation of these new spaces, our province desperately needs a much more aggressive and long-term policy to address our child-care needs.

Despite the desperate need to replace the only psychiatric hospital in the province, this budget offered absolutely nothing for those suffering from mental illness.

In contrast, business owners will reap almost $80 million in tax savings due to the reduction of the small business tax while off-sale beer vendors will enjoy a $5.1 million discount. While the government has made much of it’s low-income tax reduction policy, a tax cut on nothing is still nothing. If we were to measure what constituencies this government covets by the amount of largesse given to them in yesterday’s budget, it is obvious where the poorest in our province rank.

But an even closer look at the meager housing funding in Ken Krawetz' budget makes the Sask Party look even worse. There, the brand-new province-wide fund to encourage the construction of affordable new homes (through tax abatements of course) has been allocated a paltry $200,000 per year - or less than the cost of a single average home in one of Saskatchewan's major cities.

Of course, part of the problem is that a focus on property tax utterly misses the point as to what makes housing unaffordable for those who need it. But it also speaks volumes that while feeling the need to pretend to do something, the Sask Party saw no problem with such an embarrassing excuse for a plan.