The restored sewer and water infrastructure program, while a needed contribution to capital accounts doesn't do anything to help the cuts to operating budgets. The Premier scolds the federal government for the way they treat the province with respect to transfers and they gave him two year's notice of their plans. But he slashes his transfers to local government just days before Christmas and a new municipal budget year. These choices are even tougher than in the past.
Provincial support is about one-fifth of what it was only two years ago.
At the same time they have been downloading arterial highways, reducing access to utility taxes and consistently refusing to have their commercial Crown corporations pay taxes like any other taxpayer. A positive side of the announcement was not to touch small communities that would have been devastated by funding cuts.