Budget timeline hints at NDP election campaign: critics
Posted Apr 1, 2010 06:28:42 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Opposition critics say the New Democrats financial timeline is actually a preview of their next election campaign.
Finance Minister Graham Steele told a Chamber of Commerce audience Wednesday his government is planning to balance the budget in the next three to five years.
“The target that’s going to be tabled on Tuesday shows a balance in 2013-2014,” he said. “That budget will be tabled in the spring of 2013 which is before the four-year anniversary of our election.”
Liberal finance critic Leo Glavine says the timetable Steele delivered suggests the NDP is already thinking about the next election.
“That’s most likely in line with the next election year,” he said. “Their hope and plan is to have a balanced budget by that time.”
Tory finance critic Allan MacMaster says his party wouldn’t have waited to balance the books, claiming the deficit would have been eliminated this year.
“The minister is starting to show what an NDP government is going to mean for Nova Scotians,” he said. “It’s going to mean deficits, higher taxes, and I don’t think that’s what Nova Scotians want to see.”
Halifax Chamber of Commerce president Valerie Payn says four years before balancing the books isn’t ideal – but says it’s realistic.
“We’ve looked at the figures that shows projections from the Economic Advisory Panel that if we didn’t do something we would have a 1.4-billion dollar gap,” Payn said.
But Payn says she and her members will hold Steele to his projected timeline.
