A new statutory holiday and a two-percent provincial sales tax cut highlighted the opening of a new Saskatchewan legislative sitting.
The province will implement a February Family Day beginning in 2007. This puts the number of statutory holidays at 10 and makes Saskatchewan the jurisdiction with the most such days, alongside Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
The day after the Oct. 26 throne speech, the first read by new lt.-gov. Gordon Barnhart, finance minister Andrew Thomson announced the PST would fall from seven to five percent.
There are financial implications to both announcements.
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The extra holiday will cost businesses about $57 million in lost productivity, said Canadian Federation of Independent Business spokesperson Marilyn Braun-Pollon.
The PST cut is worth about $325 million. Thomson said the government can afford to forgo that revenue because of stronger than expected revenues through this fiscal year. The mid-term financial report will be made public Nov. 15.
Before the province’s centennial celebration of 2005, premier Lorne Calvert had nixed the idea of another holiday. But last week he said residents needed a break between New Year’s Day and Easter weekend.
“There will be costs,” the premier told reporters. “There are costs to business, there are costs to government.”
But he said those costs are not insurmountable and a holiday provides a tangible benefit to those who are making the Saskatchewan economy so productive.
