Party leaders start first full week of campaigning
Posted Sep 9, 2013 07:56:06 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotia’s party leaders have hit the ground running now that a provincial election has been called.
The leaders took different approaches to the first weekend of the campaign but they wasted no time trying to separate themselves from each other on important issues.
Liberal leader Stephen McNeil focused on energy policy in the first full day of the provincial election campaign, promising to break Nova Scotia Power’s monopoly.
McNeil said ending the utility’s monopoly would allow renewable energy producers to compete for business.
“What they need more than anything is access to the customer,” he said. “As it’s structured now they’re coming into our province, they have to invest a huge amount of capital, and then they have to deal directly with their competitor. We’re saying it’s time for them to deal directly with their customer.”
But NDP politician Mat Whynott said breaking the monopoly is not the best deal for Nova Scotians.
“We need to keep moving forward with our plan around the Maritime Link, around green, local made in Atlantic Canada solutions for our energy needs,” he said.
The NDP, meanwhile, outlined plans for a multi-year plan to pave local roads, which it says would be a first for the province.
Premier Darrell Dexter says the program wouldn’t cost any additional money because it would come from a reallocation of government funding.
During an appearance on Maritime Morning: Weekend Edition, he chose to point out his government’s work with health care.
“We literally invented a new model with the collaborative emergency centre,” he explained. “Where we’ve implemented those collaborative emergency centres, emergency rooms closures have gone down 92% and that model is now being followed in other provinces across the country.”
He also took pride in a recent Stats Canada report.
“The number of low income Nova Scotians has declined by 10%, some 7,700 less low income Nova Scotians than four years ago,” he said.
Dexter added he feels ways to spur economic activity will be a major focus of debate.
“We have to be prepared to invest in our own economy, attract companies to come here, and build our economy and that’s an important part of what the government does,” he explained.
PC leader Jamie Baillie spent part of his Sunday explaining how he would stop corporate bailouts, noting the province has a long history of loaning money to failed businesses, such as furniture maker Scanwood, which was later placed in receivership.
“In 2010, Scanwood was handed nearly five-million dollars of tax payer money in an attempt to hold onto jobs here,” he said. “Those jobs were gone within 24 months.”
Baillie said the NDP hands out roughly $89-million annually to businesses and that money would be better spent reducing the harmonized sales tax.
Baillie also visited a restaurant in downtown Halifax to promise the elimination of the small business tax.
He says the tax rate for small business is an impediment to growth and eliminating the 3.5-per-cent tax would give those companies more than $62 million to help create jobs.
Leader’s Monday agendas
The leaders will be taking their campaigns out of HRM today.
Jamie Baillie will speak about taxes and small business in downtown Halifax before heading to Stellarton and Thorburn.
Darrell Dexter will start his day in Timberlea where he’ll announce a roads plan before campaigning in Liverpool, Bridgewater, Lunenburg and Chester.
Stephen McNeil will start with an announcement about protecting ratepayers in Halifax.
He too will then be off to Lunenburg and Chester to campaign.
