NDP Finance Critic, Trent Wotherspoon, that the provincial budget tabled yesterday (Wed) doesn’t provide cost-of-living relief for families or small businesses facing hardship. He suggests one thing that could have been included considering the revenue surplus would be to roll back the power and energy rate hikes.

Finance Minister Donna Harpauer answered that if you include taxes, utilities and housing costs, Saskatchewan has the lowest total of all the provinces for a family of four. Minister of the Crown Investments Corporation, Don Morgan, added that for a total utility bundle, the average Saskatchewan family pays over $700 less than a family in British Columbia, $3700 less than in Ontario and $4,000 less than in Alberta.

Official Opposition Leader, Carla Beck, stated that more than half of the people in this province say they are worse off than they were last year and added that since the Sask Party hiked the PST in 2017, families are paying almost $1 thousand more per year, which is a 70 per cent increase.