Being finance minister in Manitoba must feel a little like walking through a thunderstorm with a lightning rod. There are dark clouds of deficit and debt and critics always ready to strike. But sometimes the finance minister gets to put those critics on the hot seat and ask what they’d do if they had the job.

 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently faced the fire of the legislative budget panel and here’s what we recommended.

 

Recommendation One: Don’t Raise Taxes

 

Obviously, nobody is surprised the CTF is against raising taxes. But, in Manitoba, this point isn’t coming up out of habit. Manitoba has a problem with high taxes and raising them even higher would cause big problems.

 

Think about the taxes paid by the average family in Manitoba. According to Statistics Canada, the median household income in the province is almost $75,000. If that family lives in Winnipeg, it will pay about $7,383 in provincial taxes. If that family moves to Regina, Saskatchewan’s provincial taxes total $4,068. Raising taxes even higher will send Manitobans the sad signal that they should consider moving.

 

Manitobans certainly don’t need new taxes, including carbon taxes.

 

Carbon taxes don’t help the environment, but they cause real economic pain. For example, Manitoban farmers would be forced to pay more for fuel and fertilizer while competing on world markets with American and Australian farmers who aren’t going to be paying carbon taxes. Meanwhile, British Columbia already has a carbon tax, but its emissions are going up.

 

The CTF is convinced Manitobans don’t want a carbon tax, but don’t take our word for it: ask the people. Premier Brian Pallister’s campaign platform promised Manitobans the right to “vote on any proposed major tax increases.” A carbon tax that increases the cost of virtually everything would certain fit in the category of “any proposed major tax increases.”

 

Recommendation Two: Don’t Increase Spending

 

Manitoba’s running an operational deficit of $911 million this year so the budget will need to be trimmed at some point, but let’s start by keeping spending from going up.

 

Provincial revenues have been stable or rising for a few years. The problem is that spending has been going up even faster. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that’s not sustainable.

 

If next year’s budget holds the line on spending and revenues rise by a 3 per cent due to inflation and economic growth, the operational deficit will be cut in half to about $454 million.

 

For those wondering whether any government can operate without ever-increasing spending, the Saskatchewan government has already embarked on a plan hold spending increases to zero.

 

Farmers, journalists, charities and many others sometimes go through a year when their budgets don’t automatically go up – if all of us can do it, so can government.

 

Recommendation Three: Reform MLA Pensions

 

Government pensions are a big problem. For most of us, the funds we take out of our retirement savings are directly related the amount we put in. For most government pensions, the generous payouts flow whether there’s enough money in the fund or not. If the fund is short, taxpayers are on the hook.

 

Several MLAs who lost their seats in the last election will qualify for million-dollar retirement payouts, even though the government doesn’t disclose whether there’s enough money in the MLA pension plan.

 

What we do know is that government as a whole has unfunded pension liabilities of about $2.5 billion.

 

Government pensions need to be reformed so that the amount paid out reflects the amount put in. Many private sector pensions are already doing this. The Saskatchewan government switched to defined-contribution pensions decades ago.

 

Government-wide pension reform will take time, but it can start now.

 

MLAs need to show they’re serious about pension reform by leading the way and reforming their own pensions first.