It will be awhile before fisherman are able to get their boats on the lakes but if you have ever seen a fish flip-flopping around just after it is caught, you will have some understanding of the recent week in the Manitoba Legislature.
That’s because the Selinger NDP government, fresh off of surprising Manitobans with a proposed increase in the provincial sales tax (PST) from 7% to 8% seems to be having a hard time explaining why the increase is necessary and why they are ignoring the law which requires a referendum before a PST increase can happen.
It started off with the Premier telling Manitobans that he would scrap the legal requirement to hold a referendum before increasing the PST. He said this was necessary because he wanted to spend all sorts of money before the construction season started. Then he changed his story to say that he didn’t want to hold a referendum because he thought it would cost too much money, ignoring the fact an increase in the PST will cost Manitobans about $275 million per year. A new story emerged when the Premier said that he wanted the new money to pay for flood mitigation work in the Assiniboine and Red River Valley, even though his government has spent less than 1% of its revenues in the past decade on this type of work.
Not only did the stories change over the course of the week, the contradictions kept popping up. It was only two years ago that Premier Greg Selinger called a news conference with the current Minister of Finance standing beside him and demanded that a referendum be called into the future of the Wheat Board. The future of the Wheat Board impacted far fewer Manitobans than an across the board increase in the PST does and yet Mr. Selinger said that a referendum was needed to ensure that the voice of the people was heard.
Now that he has a chance to hear the voice of the people on the PST increase he is changing the law to run away from a referendum. In fact, two years ago Premier Selinger authorized $80,000 of Manitoba taxdollars to go to an Alberta lobby group who was lobbying for a referendum on the future of the Wheat Board.
The NDP have not figured out exactly how to explain the PST increase to Manitobans because the truth of the matter is there isn’t any really good way to sell it. The NDP government was fortunate enough to govern during a decade of prosperity and in a time when transfer payments from Ottawa were increasing at record rates.
And instead of planning and being responsible, it spend everything and more and now Greg Selinger is raising taxes on Manitobans at record rates because they have no intention of finding savings within government.
Because of that, expect a whole lot more flip-flopping to come.
