(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Derek Craddock

PST ON CONSTRUCTION LABOUR

PST not the only concern for companies says construction association

Mar 2, 2023 | 4:00 PM

The province’s Opposition leader is calling for an end to the PST on construction labour, but one organization said there are more pieces to the puzzle.

NDP leader Carla Beck called for the axing of the tax on Thursday at the legislature, believing it is delaying projects and harming municipalities.

“(It) causes municipalities who have such a disproportionate amount of infrastructure to raise property taxes,” Beck told reporters at the Legislative Building.

“It has slowed growth, it has stopped growth (and) delayed projects in many instances,” Beck added. “Again, this is a consistent message we’ve heard from municipal leaders that this tax is leaving us with projects that are too expensive and it’s making us not competitive. It needs to be removed.”

Those concerns were also addressed by Municipal Affairs Minister Erika Ritchie as she toured Prince Albert earlier this week.

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In an interview with paNOW, she said the PST is affecting the ability to deliver on important infrastructure projects.

“Just the unfairness of the taxing and double taxing on municipal government by the SaskParty,” she said.

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However, the president of the Prince Albert Construction Association, Dan Yungwirth, said it’s not just the PST that is putting a strain on construction projects and companies.

“We’ve been hit hard with inflation, a war in Europe, supply chain delays, material costs increasing, overhead costs increasing, and certainly, a labour supply issue. We’ve been hit by a number of things that have negatively affected our industry and PST is just one of them.”

He does admit that the PST has had an impact on the industry since it was introduced, but it hasn’t stalled work on projects.

“We can see a little bit of an anomaly in the last year or so where governments are spending a lot of money on construction services and demand has gone up because of that,” he said. “It’s tough to say what the PST has had a negative effect on, but in years prior it has.”

Overall, Yungwirth said the construction association continues to be strong with support from its member companies with plans to expand to more members in the near future.

“Generally, our industry is fairly healthy right now, just a large number of challenges and headwinds that we’re facing that most of us are making our way through.”

The PST on construction labour came into the effect in the province on April 1, 2017.

Last month, SUMA called for the removal of the tax saying that Prince Albert received $7.1 million from the province in municipal revenue sharing in 2021- they had to pay the province $2.8 million in PST on construction projects.

-With files from 650 CKOM

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @PA_Craddock