‘The government has to spend less’: Taxpayers federation takes aim at Manitoba debt

A new report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the Manitoba government has unsustainably increased its debt by 61 per cent over the past decade.

The federation’s prairies director, Gage Haubrich, said because the province has to borrow money, paying back the interest ultimately falls on Manitobans.

“Those debt interest payments will cost taxpayers about $2.3 billion this year, or about 21 per cent of all revenue that the government takes in in taxes,” he said.

The report indicates that each Manitoban’s share of the growing debt is nearly $25,000 — with around $1,500 in per capita debt interest each year — and the government needs a plan to pay it back.

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“The government has to spend less and control its own budgeted spending,” Haubrich said.

“We’ve seen in the last fiscal update, the government’s already spending about $130 million more than it said it would at budget time. That’s another thing that adds to the debt.”

If the government needs to allocate funds for certain programs or departments, he said, it needs to find savings elsewhere.

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The province, the report says, spends more on debt interest payments than it collects via a number of different taxes combined — including education property taxes, fuel taxes, and the land transfer tax.