How federal election promises hit your wallet

Trying to strike up a conversation with someone about how election promises affect the average voter’s personal finances prompts memories of a hit Simon and Garfunkel song.

“The Sound of Silence.”

With billions of dollars in each party’s platform looming over the campaign and a pandemic recovery taking centre stage, getting people to talk about how these lofty promises affect their personal finances is a tall task.

University of Regina economics associate professor Jason Childs suggests it could be by design given the recent trend of parties campaigning extremely targeted programs.

“There really isn’t one big, broad brush program where you go, ‘This is going to really help Saskatchewan a lot, (and) this is going to help Saskatchewan less,’ ” he said.

“You’ve really got to be looking at the breakdown of the demographics and who’s in what boat.”

One campaign promise generating plenty of debate across the country is the Liberals’ plan to introduce $10-a-day child care.

The NDP has already supported the plan while the Conservatives are pledging to scrap the $10-a-day pledge in favour of a refundable child-care tax credit that would cover up to 75 per cent of a family’s annual fees.

“That’s a big expense, and we know in Saskatchewan it can be really, really expensive and often deter people — particularly women — from re-entering the labour market,” Childs said.

“Getting that sorted out is really important and will change what’s happening to a lot of people.”

Whether or not the program comes in some form of tax rebate or a $10-a-day subsidized service from an approved child-care centre is an important distinction for Childs.

If the Liberals’ plan were to move forward, Childs fears a rush to these limited spaces could overwhelm available locations and squeeze some people out of child care altogether.

“(As for) the Conservative program with the tax rebate, because it is a tax rebate, you can see that more easily tail off at the upper-income end,” he said. “If I’m making $300,000 a year, I’m probably not going to see that same benefit if it were a $10-a-day program.”

In any case, Childs welcomes the day the pandemic is behind us and the term “balanced budget” can once again be argued.

Limitless spending since the arrival of COVID-19 only creates potential problems for Ottawa in the future, according to Childs.

“If we don’t get back to (balanced budgets), we’re going to see our debt service costs rise (and) we’re going to see these large jumps in the debt-to-GDP ratio,” he said.

“By focusing on balanced budgets, you leave yourself more room to manoeuvre in a crisis. If we get hit by another one in the next couple of years, we’re not going to have nearly as much firepower left as we would have had we been running balanced budgets the last five or six years.”