Premier Brian Pallister is walking back his proposal to bring in a new health care tax.

That’s good.

Because as trial balloons go, this idea was a real stinker for Pallister, a politician who normally prides himself on his fiscal conservative principles, including lower taxes, balanced budgets and smaller government.

Pallister, for reasons that remain a mystery, decided to compromise those principles last month when he said during a press conference that Manitobans had a “stark” choice between a new health tax or cuts to health services.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that very likely is the stark truth of the matter,” Pallister told a room full of reporters Sept. 13. To push the narrative, government put out an online questionnaire giving Manitobans a choice of either paying a new health care premium – which would be based on income – or face a reduction in health care services.

“It’s most certainly a tax increase, there’s no doubt of that, and I don’t think we should couch it any differently than that,” said Pallister. “But I also know Manitobans deserve a chance to be listened to.”

The premier acknowledged during the press conference that he had no mandate to raise taxes. In fact, he ran in last year’s provincial election to reduce the PST and keep taxes in Manitoba low.

“We didn’t run asking for permission to raise taxes,” said Pallister. “Everybody here knows that.”

But he proposed the idea of a health tax anyway. And he made excuses for it.

“It wasn’t our intention,” said Pallister. “We also had no indication we’d lose $2 billion in the health-care transfers from Ottawa.”

Actually, Manitoba is not losing $2 billion in health care transfers. Manitoba received a $45-million increase in the Canada Health Transfer this year, a 3.4% increase over last year. Provinces will get increases equal to the growth of nominal GDP each year, with a minimum floor of 3%. That’s down from the 6% annual increases they were getting under the former Harper government, a temporary hike designed to elevate health care funding across the country. It was never meant to be permanent.

The $2 billion figure is what the Pallister government estimates they are “losing” by not getting 6% increases anymore.

But his claim that the province had “no indication” transfer increases were going to return to 3% is entirely bogus. The change was announced by the federal government in 2011, giving provinces a full six years advance notice.

Also, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau never committed to reversing that 2011 decision, saying only during the 2015 federal election campaign that he would “negotiate” a CHT deal with the provinces, which doesn’t mean anything. Ultimately, Trudeau maintained what was announced in 2011 and even sweetened the pot a little.

There was no surprise funding change.

Pallister is now watering down his health tax proposal, though. He told reporters outside the legislature Thursday when the building was evacuated due to a security threat, that the health tax was never a proposal. He said it was just a question on a questionnaire that’s been “turned into a proposal.”

That’s not exactly true, either. Pallister was clearly proposing a health tax. He said it was an option and would be necessary to avoid cuts to health services. And now he’s backtracking on that because he’s getting a lot of push-back.

And that’s fine. That’s what trial balloons are all about. Governments release them and see how long they stay in the air before they get shot down. And this one got pierced the second it left the launching pad.

All this is good news for Manitobans. There is no objective reason for a health tax.

In all likelihood, when the Pallister government introduces its 2018 budget, there will be no health tax, overall spending growth in health will be about the same as it is this year and services will be intact.

Which will be proof a health tax was never required.