Winnipeg will have to wait for budget numbers: Pallister

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This article was published 20/01/2019 (2123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister says he’s not about to change the provincial budget-making process to accommodate a City of Winnipeg request it receive word, in writing, of the funding it will receive this year.

“The tail doesn’t wag the dog,” Pallister said Monday, when asked for comment about Mayor Brian Bowman’s public appeal last week. “No provincial government gives written confirmation (about) budgetary items to a city. Not one.”

The mayor announced last week he would delay release of the city’s 2019 operating budget in hopes of first getting more certainty on what size of cash envelope to expect from the province.

Pallister’s response is, when it comes to provincial funding, Winnipeg has it good and the city should “show some respect for each other’s level of government.”

“It’s like me demanding the prime minister give me exactly the numbers the federal government’s going to have in its budget for me so I can do my budget,” the Manitoba premier said.

Pallister said the city can delay its budget-making process if it chooses.

“We’re using the same process that’s been in place here for decades. That’s not going to change.”

He also said that no city in Canada gets more generous funding from its provincial government than Winnipeg, and no city receives that funding with fewer strings attached.

“The city has not got a revenue problem,” Pallister said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca