Opinion: Saskatchewan needs to deal with its massive debt
By Gage Haubrich
When your car breaks down, you dip into your emergency fund to cover the repair bill.
It’s a tough choice, but one you must make when faced with a difficult situation.
Instead of putting that car repair on your credit card and having to pay interest charges, it makes sense to find other savings in your budget to cover the unexpected expense.
The same logic should apply to the provincial government.
Premier Scott Moe recently said, “You’ll see a deficit in a couple of weeks in this province,” referring to the
. Moe says the province’s revenue is taking a hit this year.
Like an unexpected car breakdown, the government can’t control everything that affects its bottom line. Catastrophic events like pandemics and tariffs are largely out of the provincial government’s control.
But the government can control how much it spends.
And after years of overspending, Saskatchewan doesn’t have an emergency fund to rely on when times get tough.
And that’s when fiscal discipline matters most. That’s because when the government balloons spending during times of economic turmoil and low government revenue, taxpayers suffer the long-term consequences of increased government debt and higher debt interest charges.
The government has been overspending its own budget plans for years. It spent $970 million more than budgeted in 2024. In 2023, the government went over budget by $2.2 billion. In 2022, it was $1.4 billion. And in 2021, it was $2.5 billion.
And Moe is continuing to overspend this year.
The government was already spending about $521 million
, according to the mid-year financial report. Now its also spending $650 million more through special warrants.
The government says these special warrants are for important priorities like health care. It’s important to spend on priorities, but just like the car repair, putting these charges on the taxpayer credit card doesn’t solve the problem. It makes the problem worse in the future because all that borrowing must be paid back, plus interest.
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All this extra spending means more debt and higher interest charges paid by taxpayers. Since becoming premier, Moe has more than doubled Saskatchewan’s provincial debt, which is expected to reach $23.9 billion by the end of this year.
And because of all that debt the government is wasting record amounts on debt interest charges. The government is spending about $878 million on debt interest charges this year. The Saskatchewan government has spent more than $5 billion debt interest charges since 2017. That’s money that can’t be used to hire a nurse, pave a road or build a school. Instead, it goes to bondholders collecting interest.
The
longer the government keeps ballooning the debt
without a plan to pay it back, the more likely tax hikes on Saskatchewanians become. When the government starts to run out of money to spend, it starts to look for more in the pockets of Saskatchewan taxpayers.
Smart Saskatchewanians have an emergency fund and pay down debt because they have a plan. The government hasn’t had a plan for years. Budget 2026 is another opportunity for the government to finally present that plan and get the province back on track before the debt becomes too big to handle.
Moe’s plan can start with a comprehensive spending review. The government can’t find savings if it isn’t looking.
Former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s government conducted a spending review in the 1990s and found $9.8 billion in spending reductions. The Newfoundland and Labrador government embarked on a similar spending review and found more than $860 million in savings in 2021.
Moe needs to present a plan to fix Saskatchewan’s finances and
in Budget 2026 so Saskatchewanians aren’t stuck wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year on debt interest payments.
Gage Haubrich is the Prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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