Organization and politicians in Manitoba have recently been throwing around the idea of a one per cent increase to the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) to go towards the province's crumbling roads and soaring infrastructure deficit.

Ian Wishart, Conservative MLA for Portage la Prairie, said his party does not agree with the proposed tax hike.

"Our position is that we don't need to hike the PST but in fact that if you reprioritize some of the dollars that the Province has coming in now and is spending that you can begin work on the infrastructure deficit, which is substantial," said Wishart. "It's been estimated it is in the billions, of course."

Wishart would like to see the gas tax actually put into the roads instead of hiking the PST.

"Something like the gas tax which many people actually believe is dedicated to roads is just a revenue stream. It's not dedicated to road improvements and things like that. It would make far more sense (to use it) than pumping up the PST another one per cent," said Wishart.

For the full story see Thursday's edition of the Portage Daily Graphic.