Five straight years of budget-busting spending prove one thing: Saskatchewan has lost its grip on reality
Going over budget once could be a fluke. Twice starts to look like a pattern. Five years in a row show the fiscal discipline of a kid in the toy aisle with a parent’s credit card.
That kid is the Saskatchewan government. And taxpayers are stuck with the credit card bill.
The newly released public accounts show the Saskatchewan government spent more than it budgeted by $1 billion in 2025-26. Premier Scott Moe told taxpayers he would spend $21 billion last year. Instead, his government spent $22.1 billion.
The government says it chose to spend over budget because of increased demand for health care and wildfire costs throughout the year.
That’s not an excuse. Health-care demand goes up every year. Wildfires are becoming a staple of Saskatchewan summers. These are expenses the government should be planning for.
When a Saskatchewan family gets hit with an unexpected car repair bill, they cut back on restaurants or vacations to cover the cost. They don’t take out another credit card. Moe needs to do the same.
Plus, it wasn’t just health care and wildfires. The government’s spending was over budget in eight out of 11 of its main departments last year.
Usually, the government blames high crop insurance costs for going over budget, but agriculture expenses came in $356 million under budget last year.
The weather gifted the government a $356-million windfall and it still managed to overspend by more than $1 billion.
And government revenues came in over budget by about $77.4 million.
Overspending has become a habit for Moe’s government. The Saskatchewan government spent $970 million more than budgeted in 2024. In 2023, it went over budget by $2.2 billion. In 2022, it was $1.4 billion. In total, the government has spent about $8 billion over budget since 2020.
And all this extra spending, without offsetting savings elsewhere, means more debt. The government’s debt hit $25 billion at the end of 2025-26. That’s $1.6 billion more borrowing than the government projected. Moe has more than doubled Saskatchewan’s debt since becoming premier.
More debt means more money wasted on debt interest payments. Debt interest charges cost taxpayers about $817 million last year. That’s about $640 per Saskatchewanian. That’s money that can’t hire a nurse or pave a highway. It’s completely wasted paying for years of the government’s overspending.
Saskatchewanians see the problem. Polling from Insightrix shows 87 per cent are concerned about the growth of provincial government debt.
Every dollar the government borrows must be paid back plus interest. And as the government continues to overspend and borrow more money, that debt interest bill grows larger.
Eventually, the bill grows so large that the government doesn’t have enough money to spend on its other priorities. That means the government will raise taxes on Saskatchewan families to cover the difference.
Saskatchewan has been down this road before. Former premier Roy Romanow hiked three different taxes in a single year because debt interest charges ate up a growing share of the provincial budget.
That can’t happen again. Luckily, the fix is simple for the government: Stop spending over budget. And when unexpected costs occur, find savings in other parts of the budget instead of reaching for the credit card to cover the difference.
The Saskatchewan Party says one of its guiding principles is the “steady, gradual reduction in government spending and taxation while maintaining a firm commitment to balanced budgets.”
The government is spending at record levels and has doubled the debt in less than 10 years. And that could mean tax hikes on the horizon.
Every parent knows the fix for the kid in the toy aisle. Say no and put the credit card away. It’s that simple for the Saskatchewan government.
Moe needs to make this year’s budget the first one in six years in which he keeps his spending promises.
Gage Haubrich, Prairie Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, is a fierce critic of government overspending and a champion for Prairie taxpayers.
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