Manitoba's auditor general is accusing the Pallister government of fudging the numbers when it comes to the deficit.
Finance Minister Scott Fielding announced Friday the deficit sits at just under $695 million, lower than the forecast by $145 million.
“Our message really to Manitobans and taxpayers is we’re really moving in the right direction,” said Fielding.
But Norm Ricard, the province’s auditor general, says the picture is even rosier than the government is reporting. Ricard says the deficit is half the amount, $348 million dollars. Ricard is taking the rare move of calling out the province because he says there are two significant errors in its accounting he says are serious.
The government left out two line items: the Workers Compensation Board and the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation, which has been moved to a trust. The auditor says those omissions are worth $347 million.
“It indicates that there are two areas in the province’s summary financial statement that are significantly not in compliance with public sector accounting standards and that’s a big deal,” said Ricard.
Finance Minister Scott Fielding says the province disagrees with the auditor. He says for too long governments have been taking credit for revenue outside of government control. Fielding says removing these entities prevents governments from raiding reserves or using the numbers to make things look better than they are.
“We truly think specifically this is not our money especially in terms of worker compensation, this is worker money, this is employer money. For far too long government has been taken credit for a number of these areas,” said Fielding.
Fielding says the province is being more open and transparent by doing this.
