Bowman content after Tory budget

If Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman is concerned about the amount of funding the province will provide to Winnipeg for the coming year, he certainly isn’t showing it.

Bowman told reporters Wednesday that he’s pleased the provincial budget demonstrates the “strong partnership” relationship between the city and Broadway is continuing, in the absence of any concrete funding amounts detailed in the budget and without knowing if the Building Manitoba Fund will be renewed — or for what amount — or even if the province will provide any financial assistance to regulate the taxi industry once the Manitoba Taxicab Board is phased out.

Bowman said he’s simply pleased the province didn’t gut funding to the city.

“We were anticipating the likelihood of deep cuts and we didn’t see that,” Bowman said. “I want to recognize there weren’t deep cuts (in the provincial budget) to the City of Winnipeg.”

Budget stops bleeding and gets province on right path, Friesen assures business crowd

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen has a message for critics who say Tuesday's budget didn't go far enough to slay a huge government operating deficit.

It could have been worse.

Speaking to a Manitoba Chambers of Commerce breakfast Wednesday, Friesen said the government was on a trajectory to incur a $1.2-billion deficit this fiscal year.

He told the crowd of 300 that it took considerable effort to battle that trend and instead project an $840-million shortfall, a modest improvement from last year's $872-million provincial deficit.

Critics call modest increase in health-care spending a bitter pill to swallow

Just days after the Pallister government diagnosed Winnipeg can do without half of its emergency departments, the provincial budget has prescribed a modest increase in health-care spending.

But critics say it will be a bitter pill for Manitobans to swallow.

The province is increasing the $6.1-billion health budget by $107.5 million. It works out to be a 1.8 per cent increase from last year, but it is smaller than the 2.1 per cent increase in the province’s overall budget.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said overall health-care spending makes up almost half the province’s budget, yet Manitobans are still faced with hours waiting in emergency rooms and on waiting lists for certain types of surgery.

Spending up on flood infrastructure, down on highways, education, housing

Flood control projects will get substantially more money this year -- but infrastructure spending is dropping in most areas of highways, health, education and housing.

The Pallister government kept its promise in Tuesday’s provincial budget of spending at least $1 billion annually on strategic infrastructure.

Water-related infrastructure spending was $40 million last year, and this year Infrastructure Minister Blaine Pedersen has $60 million to spend.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said in his budget speech that the province will invest “in flood protection, drainage, and other water control infrastructure.

Manitoba budget 2017: A breakdown of the government’s priorities

Salary cost-cutting runs throughout the Progressive Conservative government’s second budget, billed as “responsible recovery” with modest spending increases in key areas of health, education, justice and infrastructure.

Who takes a hit

Post-secondary educationUniversities and community colleges will see their provincial grants virtually frozen for 2017, leaving institutions largely responsible for recovering any expenditure increases, such as those driven by inflation.

Operating grants and strategic initiative spending increases slightly to $681.69 million from $679.79 million, spending on access programs is unchanged at $11,298, and advanced education and training assistance increases slightly to $6.38 million from $6.27 million.

Manitoba graduatesThe tuition fee tax rebate — designed to keep graduated students from leaving the province — will be phased out. The rebate drops from $2,500 to $500 immediately and will be eliminated entirely in 2018. The advanced tuition fee rebate, which allowed students to apply for future rebates in advance, is eliminated immediately.

The province found little sign the rebate was anything more than a gift to graduates who were planning to stay in Manitoba after graduation anyway.

No new taxes, but relief is minor

Hurry up and wait: that’s the message for taxpayers hoping for significant relief in the 2017 budget.

The province will continue to index both the basic personal exemption — the amount you can earn without paying taxes — and the various tax brackets to inflation, but the combined savings for 2017 will work out to $71 for people earning the most.

Those savings will increase to $157 in 2018, $254 in 2019 and $353 in 2020.

The estimated cost to the treasury for the 2017-18 fiscal year is $23.3 million.

No estimate of financial, employment impacts of public-sector wage controls

How much money wage controls are saving Manitobans from paying out this year remains a mystery.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen has not calculated nor would he venture an estimate Tuesday of the impact that his government’s public sector wage controls have had on his second provincial budget.

The wage control legislation “is not a measure that drops a number on the table,” he told reporters.

Asked three times, Friesen would not be pinned down on whether any public sector worker will be out of a job. Many areas within many departments outside of health and education are looking at lower budgets than last year, regardless if workers are frozen or have collective bargaining agreements still in effect.

Cameron Friesen: Budget puts Manitoba ‘on road to recovery’

Manitoba's Finance Minister Cameron Friesen makes a statement to the press regarding the 2017-2018 budget

PC budget steers cautious course around huge deficit

After preaching austerity for the past year and raising fears about deep spending cuts, the Progressive Conservative government has tabled a cautious, steady-as-she-goes budget that makes only modest progress in slaying a massive deficit.

The provincial budget, released Tuesday, contains no major shocks or surprises. There are no new taxes or tax increases.

Premier Brian Pallister said it sets the province on the right course.

“Today is a real positive step in the right direction. It’s a step on the road to recovery for Manitoba,” he said.

Eyes on budget as municipal leaders gather

Mayors, reeves and municipal councillors from across the province are going to be in close proximity this week to be able to hold provincial politicians’ feet to the fire as the Pallister government presents its budget today.

That’s because starting today, the Association of Manitoba Municipalities will be holding meetings in Winnipeg that will bring roughly 600 municipal officials together. Mayors, reeves and chief administrative officers will be meeting today, ahead of the big municipal officials seminar on Wednesday and Thursday.

Chris Goertzen, chairman of the AMM and the mayor of Steinbach, said the Pallister government’s initiative to reduce red tape is something his membership is keenly interested in.

“We continue to look for partnerships,” Goertzen said. “That comes in a variety of ways. It can be financial or it can be working on red tape and reducing regulations that impede municipalities. It will be an interesting time to look at the budget and then meet with so many municipal officials from across the province in one place.”