Public feedback supports HST hike: minister
Posted Mar 31, 2010 05:48:47 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If a summary of the province’s Back-to-Balance meetings is any indication, Nova Scotians will see the Harmonized Sales Tax increased by two per cent.
Days before the provincial budget puts possible program cuts and tax hikes on the table, Finance Minister Graham Steele has released his findings from a series of public meetings.
“I feel that I have as the finance minister a really good sense of what it is that the people of the province want and can accept,” said Steele.
Steele says his findings show people don’t want the HST to increase, but 80 per cent said they could live with it.
“That is one of the things in which I would say that there is a consensus,” he said.
“The people who are opposed to an increase they want me to say something different, but that is the consensus.”
Steele said there was no consensus on program cuts.
About 56 percent said the government should balance the budget in three to five years.
The Dexter government will table the provincial budget April 6.
