If the provincial government is going to balance its budget, it will be through spending restraint rather than increased resource revenues, Finance Minister and Humboldt-Watrous MLA Donna Harpauer says.

“If revenues do strengthen in non-renewable resources, that’s a windfall quite frankly. But in order to be stable going forward, we need to look elsewhere for revenues and how we generate revenue within our province, and that will just make our budgets more stable,” she told Bolt FM.

Over the past months, a draft budget has been built with enough flexibility to accommodate the priorities of whichever candidate won the Sask Party leadership, she said.

In this case, that means incorporating Premier Scott Moe’s pledges to restore and increase funding for educational assistants and reinstate the PST exemption on crop, hail, life and health insurance, Harpauer said.

Last year, then-Premier Brad Wall committed to balancing the books by shifting to consumption taxes rather than resource revenues - and that challenge remains, with non-renewable resources having recovered very little, she said.

“The new premier is also committed to balanced budgets and that means we have to have a very tight budget going forward and we will meet that challenge.”

The provincial budget is scheduled for an April 10 release.