The Sask. Party presented their budget yesterday and on nearly every page, there was a broken Sask. Party promise, a tax hike on the middle class, or a mean-spirited cut that hurts Saskatchewan families.
Here is a sample of what others are saying about this budget:
We had no idea this was coming and it’s a huge financial impact. It’s unprecedented for the city to take a one-time hit like this.”
-Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark
“You peel back the onion and you see other things… We have some significant issues to deal with.”
A "very difficult day" for Meewasin. "A $409,000 hit to our budget is a very substantial cut."
- Meewasin Valley Authority CEO Lloyd Isaak
“It is brutal from a small business perspective.”
-Vice-President Marilyn Braun Pollon, Prairie and Agri-business, CFIB
"The government has decided to kill food tax fairness."
-Vice President Mark Von Schellwitz, Western Canada for Restaurants
"It's a huge number. It's millions and millions of dollars. So it will mean that we will lose positions — absolutely, there will be positions lost. Services for students potentially lost. We will have to look at everything we do… It will be a tough, tough year for us and tough to manage this."
-University of Regina President Vianne Timmons
"I can't side step the fact that a minus five [per cent in funding] is probably the largest single budget cut we've ever had in our history."
- University of Saskatchewan President Peter Stoicheff
"We're already at the bare bones. There's no way to escape it. There will be cuts in the classroom."
- Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation President Pat Maze
"You guys don't know what you're doing to small communities. Think about the little people."
“Your life on Earth is fragile and now to say that your life afterwards is not worthy of anything, not even worthy of a funeral service, that’s not very fair.”
- Executive Director of Saskatoon’s Friendship Inn Sandra Stack
“They are going to hurt lower- and middle-income people the most and that is not the route they should be looking at in terms of revenue generation.”
-Peter Gilmer, advocate for the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry
With callous mean-spirited cuts to nearly everyone except the wealthy and well-connected, it’s no wonder so many, from Universities to independent businesses, are pointing out that the Sask. Party seems to have forgotten for whom they are supposed to be working.