Parmalat Chief Financial Officer Fausto Tauna is sitting in an Italian jail cell awaiting his fate while investigators probe one of the biggest financial scandals in European history. Meanwhile, officials scramble to keep the one of the world's largest dairy companies and its thousands of employees working.

Parmalat executives are paying the price for an allegedly fraudulent scheme wherein they obtained loans secured against an imaginary $5 billion dollar bank account held by American Cities Bank.

Almost by accident the bank account was found to be empty, and Parmalat fell like a house of cards, with investigators conducting New Year's eve raids in offices both in Italy and North America.

Like Enron and Worldcom, Parmalat was allegedly making fraudulent claims about their financial situation, while infusing their blood red balance sheets with money borrowed against a fictitious reserve fund.

Sound familiar

For years here in Saskatchewan, the provincial government has claimed to have a balanced budget despite making "withdrawals" from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund (FSF). The sad part is that nobody can properly explain what the fund is and how it came to be. What we do know is that funds withdrawn from the FSF have to be paid back with interest. It functions exactly like a credit card.

In the most recent financial update, the province conceded that the FSF would soon be depleted. On July 21 of last year, Finance Minister Melenchuk announced the province's "9th consecutive balanced budget" while members of the media held back laughter.

As in years past, Provincial Auditor Fred Wendel released his independent assessment of the province's finances and declared that the province was indeed in a deficit position. Thus continues the absurd ritual dance between the Auditor and the government.

In his Christmas fireside chat with reporters, Premier Calvert chose his words carefully as he conceded that the provincial budget was in a deficit position. The strange thing is, this year is no different than last year or the year before that. We've been in a deficit situation all along, with "withdrawals" from the FSF. And we're not talking a million here, a million there - we're talking about $477 million in new debt this year alone. And that's just the conservative estimate of the Provincial Auditor, without even looking at the books of the crown corporations.

There is no functional difference between what our elected officials are doing in Saskatchewan and what the imprisoned Parmalat executives did in Italy. The only tangible difference is that private corporate executives are held accountable for their deception, while politicians play by their own rules, and our money.

Saskatchewan's house of cards will eventually tumble. That's what happens when you spend more than you earn year after year.

Right now government bureaucrats are hatching plans to raise all kinds of taxes or implement new ones. The Premier himself recently floated the idea of implementing Alberta-style health premium taxes. Also on the horizon are increases to the PST and tax hikes on alcohol and tobacco.

The ultimate irony is that the provincial government currently collects more taxes than ever before in history. The province doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

Maybe we can't expect honesty from our politicians, but we can still kick up enough fuss to prevent a tax hike. Tell your MLA to balance the budget over four years without raising taxes. Let's get our house in order, before more drastic measures are required.