The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) issued a report Thursday revealing the government of Saskatchewan could have accumulated $3.3 billion in savings if it had adhered to the recommendations of the MacKinnon report and created a heritage fund a decade ago..“Praying for resource booms isn’t a prudent way to budget taxpayers’ money,” said Gage Haubrich, Prairie Director of the CTF. .“Premier Scott Moe should immediately implement a heritage fund to commit the government to save money and set the province up for financial success for decades to come.”.In 2013, the provincial government commissioned Peter MacKinnon, the former president of the University of Saskatchewan, to author a report on the management of non-renewable resource revenues..The report proposed creating a heritage fund in which the government would set aside a portion of resource revenues for future generations. However, the government chose not to implement this recommendation..According to the CTF's report, if the Saskatchewan government had adhered to a heritage fund plan similar to the MacKinnon report, it would currently possess $3.3 billion in the heritage fund..This would result in an annual interest income of $164 million..“Saskatchewan taxpayers are losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars every year because politicians don’t want to save money,” said Haubrich. .“The government needs to stop spending away the booms and start a heritage fund now.”.The Saskatchewan government has increased its debt by more than 226% since the 2013 release of the MacKinnon report.
