REGINA – The budget documents are ready and printed and the new shoes are ready to be worn for Finance Minister Jim Reiter’s first Saskatchewan provincial budget on Wednesday.
As is tradition, the printed budget books were delivered to Reiter in the finance minister’s office on Tuesday afternoon, one day before Reiter is set to rise in the Legislative Assembly to deliver the 2025 budget.
While he remained tight-lipped about the 2025 budget contents, Reiter did provide some glimpse about what the budget will contain. The budget document itself goes by the title “Delivering for You” — an early indication that the budget will focus on delivering of voters during the fall 2024 election.
Reiter confirmed the budget would “deliver on the priority areas… that we heard from people during the election campaign where they expect government to focus.”
But tariff threats looms large over this year’s provincial budget. Reiter told reporters the government was concerned about tariffs from the USA as well as China.
“Obviously the Premier’s called on the federal government to do something,” Reiter said.
“Just know we are concerned.”
He acknowledged the impact tariffs had in terms of preparing the budget. “It was difficult —- it adds so much uncertainty,” said Reiter.
“So what you’re going to see tomorrow in the budget speech first thing out of the gate is discussion on tariffs. You’ll also going to see, as part of the budget, some analysis work done by the Ministry of Finance on that as well.”
Overall, Reiter said he enjoyed working on his first budget in the Finance portfolio.
“I’m a numbers nerd, so I loved it. It was a great experience. I’m very happy, very comfortable with where we landed which I look forward to sharing with you tomorrow.”
One tradition that comes with the budget is the new shoes Reiter will be wearing. He chose the shoes with a nod to “kind of the geopolitical climate that we are in today.”
The colour of the shoes was black — “I’ll let you read into that what you will.” Reiter later noted that the shoe colour goes with the colour of the suit he will be wearing.
As well, Reiter tried to buy shoes that were not from China or the USA, in light of the tariffs from the countries.
“These shoes are manufactured in India, our major trading partner, and their head office is in England,” said Reiter.
Reiter expressed his hope that the tariff threat would settle down.
“The world needs to get back to free trade or as close to free trade as we can get. We’re an export based economy — that’s to our advantage, and it’s frankly to the whole world’s advantage.”