We had heard rumblings that Dame Moya Greene had said that we had a 40% problem. We thought that seemed high so figured we would have a look. we have been saying for a long time that we have a 25% problem which as you can see we do.
$1.8 Billion(deficit)/$7.12 Billion (revenue) = 25% of spending.
The other way to look at it is if we take the $3 billion we need to borrow this year it is 42% of spending.
$3 Billion (borrowing)/$7.12 Billion(total revenue)= 42% of spending.
So the problem is between 25%-42%. Wrap your heads around that. Reduce everything by that much! This does not include paying back the over $34 billion that we owe. So we need to generate a surplus of $600 million per year for 50 years to pay off our debt.
If you go down through the spending you can see that 48% of our revenue goes to salaries and benefits.
$3.4 Billion(Compensation and benefits)/$7.12 Billion=48% of spending.
If you add the $353 Million we pay doctors then:
$3.8Billion(Compensation and benefits including Doctors)/$7.12Billion=54% of spending.
Let me be very direct. There is absolutely no way to save this province without dramatically rightsizing compensation. When you hear labour leaders, your friends, colleagues, leaders and MHA’s say that we need to create jobs…jobs…jobs just ask them where is the money coming from? How are they going to deal with the constant multi-billion-dollar borrowing that is going to get more expensive and may not even be possible?