The government has increased the debt by 136 per cent since 2017.

Since Premier Scott Moe took the helm of government, he has more than doubled Saskatchewan’s provincial debt. Every Saskatchewanian’s per capita share of the provincial debt is now about $18,866.

Debt isn’t a fun topic, but it’s something taxpayers must face because we are the ones forced to pay the debt back and we’re burdened with paying the debt interest charges every year.

Moe is planning on increasing the debt by $2.1 billion this year, even though there have been no major droughts or natural resource price shocks shaking the province.

This shows the government is spending beyond its means has become a habit rather than a necessity.

Moe’s government needs to come up with a debt-slaying plan, fast, because all this borrowing isn’t free.

Every dollar the government borrows must be paid back plus interest. And there is a lot of interest.

Debt interest payments are costing taxpayers $878.4 million this year.

Paying interest on the debt is costing Saskatchewan taxpayers more money than the departments of Environment Natural Resources and Economic Development combined.

Debt interest payments have cost taxpayers more than $5 billion since 2017. That’s enough money to build 17 new Saskatoon Children’s hospitals.

But instead, the money was poured down the drain to cover for the government’s years of borrowing.

The government can’t just blame the pandemic and the government lockdowns for its debt increases. The Saskatchewan government only borrowed about half of that money during COVID. The government racked up the other $7.2 billion in debt before and after the pandemic.

And this debt isn’t an “investment.” When business owners take out loans to buy equipment, they do it because it will generate a profit and they have a plan to pay it off.

The government isn’t going to be selling off kilometres of highway or old hospitals for profit. And it has no plan to pay off the loans anytime soon. That’s because the government currently has no plan to stop borrowing money.

The government plans to keep increasing the debt until at least 2029.

Because of overspending, the government has already surpassed the debt number it planned to hit next year.

A big problem is the fact that the province keeps blowing its own budget. The government blew past its own spending plans by almost a billion dollars in 2024. In 2023, the government blew past its budget by $2.2 billion. In 2022, it was $1.4 billion. And in 2021, it was $2.5 billion.

If Saskatchewan just stuck to its own budget, it could have cut its borrowing in half.

Moe recently praised Saskatchewan for being the most affordable place to live in Canada. Part of the reason that Saskatchewan is so affordable is because we have lower taxes than some other places in Canada.

But if the government keeps racking up debt and wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year on interest payments, there’s a real risk the government will raise taxes on Saskatchewanians.

That’s why an immediate plan to deal with the debt is crucial. Debt today is taxation tomorrow. And Saskatchewanians having trouble affording the basics need a tax hike like farmers need another drought.

The Saskatchewan Party says it believes in a “steady, gradual reduction in government spending and taxation while maintaining a firm commitment to balanced budgets.” The province deserves credit for recent tax cuts. But spending isn’t going down and budgets aren’t balanced if the debt doubles.

Moe needs to immediately control government spending so the Saskatchewan government can stop borrowing money and get debt interest payments going down.