Recently NDP leadership candidate Theresa Oswald suggested it was a “dangerous” idea to balance the provincial budget by 2016-17.

Her claim may play well with NDP leadership voters, bankers and bond salesman in the short term, but her approach is the most dangerous for Manitobans in the long term.

As a former health minister, Ms. Oswald of all people must be familiar with the financial time bomb that awaits our health care system as our population ages.

It’s no secret that as people age, they tend to require more expensive health procedures such as 24-hour nursing care, hip replacements and triple-bypass surgery. Procedures that younger people tend to require are generally less expensive; for example, an annual check-up or an x-ray after a soccer injury.

To give you an idea of the magnitude an aging population will have on the health care system, consider a figure calculated by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries in late 2013. They concluded that unless provincial governments proceeded with serious health reform, over 100 per cent of provincial budgets would be solely dedicated to health spending by 2037.

That either means governments will have to hike taxes tremendously or there won’t be any funds available for K-12 education, universities, fixing highways, social assistance and running jails to name a few services.

So how much money did Ms. Oswald’s government put aside over the years to plan for this enormous financial challenge? Not a single cent. In fact, while she sat at the cabinet table, the NDP government doubled the province’s debt – we just passed the $32 billion debt mark.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation asked the provincial government for copies of any financial analysis they’ve conducted on the impact of our province’s aging population. Sadly, they haven’t gotten around to it. However, they did find time to hold a contest to determine our province’s official fish. (Insert joke here about politicians only being concerned with matters up until the next election).

As it stands right now, Ms. Oswald and her NDP government have our province headed straight towards a tax iceberg. Unless things change, their decision to raise the sales tax from seven to eight per cent will look like a picnic compared to what’s in store for us.

Instead of shrugging her shoulders at “dangerous” concepts like balancing the budget and worrying about debt, Ms. Oswald should be the one leading the charge for spending restraint. If her government doesn’t get spending under control now, services we actually care about will be put on the chopping block.

Recall that due to running into debt problems, Greece had no choice but to cut back on health care services. Yes, things were that bad. Closer to home, when the City of Saint John had budget problems a couple years ago, they had no choice but to look at laying off police and firefighters.

It’s bad enough that Ms. Oswald sat silent as her government spent like drunken sailors over the past decade and a half. It’s worse that she’s now running for leader and committing to do even more damage.