| NDP Demands Extension of Legislative Sitting |
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23 November 2009 NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter has written to Brad Wall demanding that the government extend the current sitting of the Saskatchewan Legislature by at least two weeks, to provide adequate time for the Opposition and the public to review the government’s unprecedented fiscal mismanagement, and to get an adequate explanation of the government’s proposed new spending priorities.
“Just two years ago, the Wall government inherited a booming economy and more than 2.3 Billion Dollars in the bank. Now Saskatchewan’s economy is in recession, and the government has a billion dollar deficit. Saskatchewan people want to know how the Wall government blew the boom, and the budget surplus, in just two short years,” Lingenfelter told a Regina news conference. “With the tabling of last week’s Mid-Year Financial Report, the Wall government has basically admitted that the March Provincial Budget is a dead document, and it has introduced an entirely new budget. Along with the Mid-Year Financial Report, the government tabled Supplementary Estimates, which amount to a totally new set of budget priorities. How are we to know that this new budget plan is any more accurate or reliable than the March budget?” Lingenfelter asked. Lingenfelter noted that the Wall government’s Supplementary Estimates propose more than 293 Million Dollars in budget cuts in nineteen different government departments and agencies, and more than 65 Million Dollars of spending increases in eight different government departments or agencies. “Elected members and the people of Saskatchewan have a right to expect adequate time to review this proposed new budget plan in detail. We are already at Day 18 of the current legislative sitting, which is scheduled to end at Day 25 on December 3rd. Eight sitting days is totally inadequate to review an entirely new provincial budget, plus deal with the legislation the government already has on the Order Paper,” Lingenfelter charged. “We will not be party to rubber stamping a new budget plan from the Wall government, when its March provincial budget has been exposed as being based on phony revenue projections, unsustainable government spending, and financial trickery, designed to hide historic raids on our Crown Corporations and the people’s ‘rainy day fund’. That is why we are demanding that the current legislative session be extended by at least eight sitting days to provide adequate time for a detailed review of the government’s budget proposals. The people of Saskatchewan expect and deserve nothing less,” Lingenfelter concluded. |
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