Premier grilled about 10 per cent PST claim

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This article was published 05/05/2023 (1111 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Heather Stefanson had some explaining to do over her repeated claim the NDP, if elected in the fall, would raise the provincial sales tax to 10 per cent.

“I’m not making anything up,” the Progressive Conservative leader said as she answered reporters’ questions Friday after speaking at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce economic summit.

“How are they planning to pay for all their increases in social services, in health care and all their increases in expenditure?” she said when asked about the source of her claim that an NDP government would hike the PST by three percentage points.

“In the past, what they’ve done is they’ve used the PST to do that.”

In 2013, after saying it wouldn’t raise the PST, the NDP government of Greg Selinger increased it by one point to eight per cent to battle the deficit and boost funding for infrastructure.

“We know that they have stated in the past they wouldn’t raise taxes, they wouldn’t raise the PST,” Stefanson said Friday.

“We knew at that time they were floating (a) nine per cent (increase). We’re now hearing that it could be as high as 10 per cent.”

Stefanson couldn’t say who the PCs have heard that from. Instead, she said it’s “a calculation based on some of the promises that they’ve made so far and obviously, looking into the future, I’m sure they’ll make more promises along the way.”

The PC party made a similar claim ahead of the 2016 election.

“The NDP is promising everything to everyone and they aren’t coming clean to Manitobans about the fact that it would be Manitobans that would pay for all of this in the form of a nine per cent or 10 per cent PST,” Morden-Winkler candidate Cameron Friesen told reporters at the time.

Stefanson said Friday the NDP needs to explain how the party will pay for its election promises.

“They have no plan to grow the economy. The only way they’re going to pay for it is by increasing taxes,” the premier said. “If you look at what that means in terms of a one or two per cent or three per cent increase to PST, that would pay for the services. We know that’s their first tax of choice, it seems,” she said, referring to the provincial sales tax that her predecessor Brian Pallister lowered to seven per cent in 2019.

Stefanson first made the claim that the NDP would hike the PST to 10 per cent in her keynote address at the PC party’s annual general meeting April 15.

The premier also claimed the NDP would defund the police, although the party has repeatedly expressed its support for police. She repeated that claim again Friday at the economic summit, telling attendees that a PC government would rather “defend the police.”

Afterward, Stefanson told reporters the NDP is “getting away with” not explaining to Manitobans how it would raise the money to pay for programs without raising taxes. If the New Democrats don’t intend to increase the PST to 10 per cent, she said they should state that loudly and clearly.

“If they’re not going to do that, they should tell Manitobans.”

The New Democrats have not revealed their taxation plans, but have denied they would raise taxes and promised to unveil a fully costed platform well ahead of the Oct. 3 election.

On Friday, the NDP finance critic shot back at the premier’s claim that his party would increase the PST.

“After seven years of health care cuts, the PCs’ only campaign tactic will be bald-faced lies to the public,” Adrien Sala said. “Manitobans are smart. They know the government’s record and they see how little credibility premier Stefanson has left,” Sala said in an email.

“Wab Kinew’s plan is to invest in health care and schools, and create good jobs for working families.”

Kinew, the NDP leader, spoke at the summit in the morning.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca