Finance Minister Donna Harpauer has a unique task in front of her as budget deliberations gear up during the Sask. Party leadership campaign.

"It's going to be rather interesting. I will have the unique role as the finance minister, in essence, of building a budget for two premiers," said Harpauer, the MLA for Humboldt-Watrous. 

Premier Brad Wall is set to retire in January, around the same time the party elects a new leader, who will automatically become the new premier.

"I am aware a lot of flexibility will be needed to be built into this budget so that we can accommodate what the new premier will want," Harpauer said.

Legislation announced in last week's Throne Speece allowing SGI to insure ride-sharing services seems to be a political winner, she said.

"We, of course, have had a number of initiatives to crack down on impaired driving but this will give people of the province options, especially in our larger urban centres. And we're finding just in polling that people are quite receptive to this idea of having options on how do they get a ride home."

She also defended raising the small business income threshold in the same year the province is fighting a projected $685 million deficit.

The province had originally planned to reduce the corporate tax rate to be the most competitive in the country, she said. Since then British Columbia raised its own corporate tax rate, so Saskatchewan reversed its decision, instead opting to give relief to small business to make sure they stay competitive.

"Small business of course in Saskatchewan is the number one employer and they're also being hit with some federal tax changes."