The Holt Liberal Government is projecting large budget deficits as far as the view is.
In his first provincial budget, the Minister of Finance, René Legacy, is projecting a fiscal deficit of $ 549 million in fiscal year 2025-26.
This deficit could reach $ 599 million if the province is based on a contingency fund of $ 50 million that has reserved to help the companies and workers of New Brunswick face the impact of US tariffs.
“Do not be wrong: as the Minister of Finance of this Government is difficult for me to be in front of you today announcing such a significant deficit,” Legacy told reporters at a press conference.
The liberal government of Susan Holt has presented a budget with a deficit of $ 549 million.
And there is also no return to balanced budgets on the horizon.
Legacy’s four-year fiscal plan projects budget deficits, although smaller, in each year of the liberal mandate until 2028-29.
That is despite the premier susan holt campaign promise to balance the budget in each year of its mandate.
In his budget speech, Legacy was without complexes.
“We will not sacrifice the fixation of health and education, and we will address the very real affording challenges that face or avoid the new Brunswickers or avoid our responsibility for addressing the impacts of tariffs in front of satisfying the final result,” he said.
“For too long, the unique approach of the government has been in balanced budgets and the reduction of debt, which has served to the detriment of the needs of the new brunnswickers. Fiscal responsibility can and should be measured in more sense than only the final result.”
The new expense includes $ 30 million in medical care to support new collaborative care clinics, the central piece of Holt’s commitment to improve access to primary care.
But in general, health spending by 2025-26 will increase only 1.8 percent on what the province is spending this year.
Economist Richard Sailont said that liberals are actually increasing spending at a slower pace than the progressive conservative government of Blaine Higgs.
But because the PCs had the benefit of large tax profits every year, he could remain in black, he said.
With those unexpected earnings decelerated, the liberals had less space to spend.
“This [Liberal] The government was a bit locked by the structural deficit [it] inherited. … he is having to contain his ambitions, in terms of expenses. “
Legacy said that the reduction of more than $ 2 billion in the accumulated debt of the province, the result of the PC frugality that criticized when it was an opposition MLA, gives the government flexibility to make that expense.
But the liberal financial plan will eliminate all this reduction in PC debt, with a return to a accumulated debt of $ 14.3 billion, the previous peak of all time, projected by 2026-27.
“The previous government has mentioned this often, saying: ‘We are leaving aside that money for certain difficult times, when we will need it,” he said at the press conference.
“Well, we can be at the point where we can no longer advance.”
However, the minister acknowledged that the tendency of the great increases in expenses is not sustainable, and warned of “difficult decisions” in the coming years.
That is why the government is launching “an initiative for transformation” to end the expense that does not produce results, and to spend money more wisely.
Legacy told reporters that decisions have not yet been made because the government wants to consult widely, even with community organizations.
“We have to involve them in the process,” he said, instead of imposing a general cut that can have unwanted consequences.
The budget does not include money for travel nurses after the recent cancellation of Vitalité Health Network of the remaining travel nursing shifts for nurses used by the private company Canadian Health Labs.
Chl contracts were expected to cost taxpayers $ 108 million in the current fiscal year 2024-25.
