It didn’t take long after the federal budget was released last week for NDP Premier Greg Selinger to start blaming Ottawa for all of the financial problems that he himself has created in Manitoba.
The ink was hardly dry on the federal budget when Mr. Selinger proclaimed that the province has had its healthcare money from Ottawa frozen for the past three years and that this is causing financial difficulties for Manitoba. A look at the federal budget, and at recent history, tells a much different story however. In fact, over the past four years the federal Conservative government has been increasing the Canada Health Transfer to Manitoba by an average of nearly $46 million a year. That works out to an average increase every year of 4.9% just for healthcare funding alone from Ottawa.
More broadly, the NDP has received from Ottawa a record $35 billion in transfer payments since 1999. Nearly 40% of the money that is spent by the provincial government in Manitoba comes from Ottawa.
So why in the world would Premier Selinger say that a lack of money from Ottawa is to blame for difficult financial circumstances in Manitoba? Because if he didn’t blame Ottawa, there would be only one level of government left to blame and it would be the one that he is responsible for.
As Premier for the past few years and as Finance Minister for a decade before that, Greg Selinger has taken the record level of federal transfer payments from Ottawa and spent every penny. In fact he spent far beyond that to the point that we are now running record deficits and have an all-time high debt in Manitoba. And it’s not from a lack of money. No Manitoba provincial government has ever had more money to spend. It’s from a lack of priorities and poor money management.
One clear example is Mr. Selinger’s willingness to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more running a hydro line down from the north on the longest route possible. How can he claim Ottawa is to blame when he wastes that kind of money all on his own? He can’t, but he is certainly going to try to convince Manitobans of it.
The provincial budget will be released on April 17th. From there we will get a clearer picture of the true state of the province’s books. However, we know that it will take a government willing to address problems honestly and in a transparent way for things to improve significantly. Given Mr. Selinger’s attempt to try and blame Ottawa this past week, there isn’t much reason to believe that is the approach we are going to get from the NDP.
