HALIFAX —
Nova Scotia’s Liberal leader pitched himself as a deficit slayer before a business audience on Wednesday, contrasting his budget balance goals with the spending plans of his Progressive Conservative opponent.
The differing spending strategies were on display as the two party leaders, along with the head of the province’s NDP, responded to questions posed by members of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce and debated each other.
“We need to make sure that we are living within our means,” Liberal Leader Iain Rankin told the business crowd. “The spending that is proposed by both opposition parties is in the billions — adding structural deficits that we cannot incur right now.”
Tory Leader Tim Houston has presented a costed platform that projects $553 million in new spending in Year 1 if he’s elected, with about 80 per cent of that dedicated to health care.
Houston and NDP Leader Gary Burrill told the chamber they planned to run deficits to address needs in health care, housing and long-term care.
In contrast, Rankin spoke of targeted spending to ensure the province can get back to balanced budgets over the next four years. The Liberal leader insisted that a more measured approach to spending would help preserve core government services and prevent future tax increases.
“This government has clearly shown that we will keep taxes low,” he said. “When we got back to (budget) balance four times we reduced taxes for small businesses, we reduced taxes for income tax.”
But Houston said big spending is needed to address challenges, particularly in the health-care sector, in which he proposes to invest an additional $430 million. “We need to be up front and honest,” he said. “Big spending is required to fix health care after eight years of neglect.”
The Tory leader said that even with his new proposed spending, his plan would return the province’s ledger to balance within six years.
Houston highlighted his party’s $140-million program that would allow companies to pay lower taxes if they put more money toward workers’ salaries.
“That’s a very specific government policy that will put more money into the hands of those working families that are struggling to pay for groceries, struggling for housing,” he said.
Meanwhile, Burrill said the NDP — which held only five seats at the legislature’s dissolution — said deficit spending is required during a time when the economy is trying to recover from one of its biggest contractions in recent history.
Burrill also said a $70-million tax break given to the province’s larger corporations that took effect just prior to the pandemic effectively prevented the government from helping small businesses in a meaningful way during the lockdowns.
He warned that if the Liberals win the Aug. 17 election, they will likely cut hundreds of millions of dollars in government spending in order to achieve balanced budgets. The Liberals, Burrill added, balanced budgets during their prior mandate by cutting a film tax credit and rural economic development programs.
The NDP leader also pointed out that most jurisdictions in Canada are not planning to return to balanced budgets for the next six to eight years.
Later in the day, the Liberals, who had been revealing their campaign planks in separate announcements, released their entire platform, estimating the cost of their promises at $454.7 million over four years, including $93.2 million in Year 1.
About $127 million is committed to health care, $77.8 million to skills and job training and $183 million toward economic and business initiatives.
“It is a plan that sets this province on a clear course to recover from the pandemic,” Rankin told reporters.
The Liberal leader presented four new proposals in the platform, including a $30-million, 10-year funding commitment for the Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship in Dartmouth, N.S., which is dedicated to researching new technologies for the ocean.
Rankin promised $6 million for the cultural sector, including for a new $3-million “content creator fund” to help boost local talent. The Liberal leader also pledged to create a new cabinet position: minister of digital government, responsible for overseeing initiatives in the digital economy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 4, 2021.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
