Finance minister unveils re-soled old shoes on eve of budget

Finance Minister Kevin Doherty says his re-soled shoes symbolize the government "meeting the challenge" with the 2017-18 budget.

"These shoes are perfectly good to use they just needed some tweaking, some adjustments not unlike our economy," Doherty said.

The finance minister made a donation to the North Central Family Centre, in lieu of the money he would have spent on new shoes. He said it will be enough for newshoes for a few children.

Doherty will deliver his second budget, a second straight deficit budgeton Wednesday afternoon.

Doherty's latest projection was a $1.2-billiondeficit and on Monday in a Facebook video, Premier Brad Wall announced the government plans to get to balance in three years.

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Wall also hinted at a tax shift, which could mean a rise in the PST.

"This is not going to be a popular budget," Wall told the media on Monday morning.

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"We didn't want to shock the economy," Wall said. "And we didn't want to completely undermine public service in the province with significant reductions, although you will see reductions in the budget. The scope of them would have been drastically different had we moved to balance it in this year."

NDP offers hip waders

Following the government's shoe drop photo-op, NDP finance critic Cathy Sproulehad her own prop to show off. Sproule offered the finance minister hip waders to help the government get through red ink.

"We are helping out our finance minister because he's got a lot of work ahead of him but we know how deep he is in this deficit so we're being very helpful today," Sproule said.

The NDP has been critical of the government's spending and lack of savings during the boom.