Young Manitobans used to grow up and joke with pride about Saskatchewan being the "gap" province on the prairies. Sadly, that analogy is coming to an end. Beyond losing a bitter fight with our neighbours in last year's Grey Cup, Manitoba is slowly falling behind "rider pride" in other ways.

Consider the fact Manitoba and Saskatchewan will lead the nation in growth this year (according to the Royal Bank) with GDP forecasts of 3.6 percent and 2.8 percent respectively. Those numbers sound great for politicians looking to boast about our province's growth, but consider what it means to the average Manitoban.

A Manitoban who earns $50,000 will pay a provincial income tax rate of 12.75 percent while Saskatchewanians earning the same amount will pay a rate of 11percent. Unfortunately, the "gap" grows even larger as you become a "rich person" like a teacher or nurse earning $66,000 a year. Manitobans earning $66,000 will pay a rate of 17.4 percent while our Saskatchewan neighbours still pay just 11 percent. Their next tax bracket doesn't kick in until individuals earn $110,000.

If our income tax gap wasn't bad enough, consider Saskatchewan's 5% sales tax and our 7% sales tax. The picture is even more bleak when one compares business tax rates between provinces.

Premier Doer likes to mention at all of his ribbon cuttings about how his
government has brought back an extinct bird known as the crane - "construction crane" that is.

Well he's right. And he has done it with your earnings. Those high tax rates that you pay have led to just about every "crane" that you see around Manitoba. The Red River campus downtown, the Esplanade Riel Bridge, the new Manitoba Hydro building, University of the North, the list goes on and on.

Clearly, Manitoba's cranes can't fly without government support. They've all been built with your dollars and the help of "have" provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C. and Ontario.

It's time to let our cranes fly in Manitoba and allow our citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

One place to begin is the upcoming provincial budget. The NDP government has an opportunity to get out of the way and encourage our province to grow as Saskatchewan has by allowing Manitobans to keep more of their earnings.

The government should make our tax system simpler and fairer by creating two personal income tax rates at 10 and 12.75 percent. Further, our tax system should be fully indexed to the rate of inflation by eliminating bracket creep - $100 millions in tax savings have been eroded because of this stealth form of taxation.

In terms of making our business taxes more competitive, the province should
immediately eliminate both the payroll tax and the corporate capital tax - a tax on physical assets that are used for productivity.

Another problem that can't be overlooked is that of Manitoba's debt. $2.3 million of your tax dollars is wasted each day on debt servicing costs. In fact, a recent Frasier Institute study pointed concluded that our debt servicing costs are the fastest growing of any jurisdiction in the country.

Jurisdictions all around the world have fostered higher growth and productivity environments when taxes have been reduced. We don't need to look to Russia, New Zealand or the United States to learn from the benefits of low taxation economies, Saskatchewan and its former NDP government created one next door.