Local municipal officials are pleased with promises for more funds for their operations from Prime Minister Paul Martin's first throne speech, but Souris-Moose Mountain MP Roy Bailey warns that Canadians could pay higher taxes if all the promises are kept.

Weyburn Mayor Don Schlosser said Martin's pledge in his first throne speech Monday to rebate 100 per cent of the GST to municipalities will mean big savings for the city.

Prior to the announcement, municipalities received a rebate of 57 per cent. Martin promised to make the rebate retroactive to Jan. 1.

Schlosser said the city could save as much as $100,000 a year from the change, equal to roughly one mill in property taxes, he said.

RM of Weyburn administrator Kim McIvor estimates an annual saving for the rural municipality of more than $14,000, but he doubts the government will get the change in place in time to benefit the municipalities this year.

"We've been asking for rebates on the GST and PST for years so, yes, I'm skeptical," he said.

Schlosser said the GST rebate is the one concrete promise for municipalities from the throne speech but he's encouraged that the prime minister is still talking about working out an arrangement with the provinces to rebate some part of the fuel tax to municipalities.

"The federal government made a commitment to work out a deal and Saskatchewan is trying to be first in line," said Schlosser.

A one cent per litre, per capita payment to Weyburn would mean an extra $200,000 annually to the city for repairs and maintenance, said the mayor.

Bailey said the throne speech reminded him of a very hungry person going to an all-you-can-eat buffet. "You take the goodies down to the end of the line and then find you don't have enough money to pay for it all."

"Martin promised no deficit but there's no way he can carry out all these commitments without raising taxes or deficit-financing," he said, noting the throne speech is a pre-election document.

The new prime minister is expected to call a general election in April.

Bailey said he was disappointed that out of a 21-page speech that went on for over an hour, agriculture was only a small part. "Coming from a rural area where agriculture is so important, it didn't ring any bells for me," he said.

But he did praise Martin for his pledge to make the government more transparent and to establish an ethics councillor.

The speech emphasized plans to allow more free votes in Parliament, for backbench MPs to have more early input in designing legislation, a new ethics code, and a promise to bring back a Chrétien government bill to create two parliamentary ethics officers.

"Martin wants to distance himself from the disruptive behavior (in the past)," said Bailey. "Maybe this will bring some respect back to the government."

Bailey said Martin should go further, and establish an all-party ethics committee as well.

The MP also wonders if Martin's commitment for more dollars to the provinces for health care is large enough.

"Our health care system will go into utter decay unless the federal government picks up its original 25 per cent of the costs," said Bailey.

The only other alternative is to look at other ways to fund it, he said, adding that Saskatchewan is one province that can't sustain the cost of the current system.

Bailey said Martin's commitment to sharing dollars with the municipalities makes sense when demographics show Canada's rural population in the single digits while older cities face huge infrastructure costs.

"Six of the provinces don't have as high a budget as Toronto, with its five million people," he said.

But it's all a balancing act and Ottawa might need to cut in other areas to find the dollars, he said. "Do we really need to spend more money protecting the duality of the culture (or multiculturalism)? Is this a priority?"