Liberal budget signals election call: Urbaniak
Political scientist points to lack of details
A Cape Breton University political scientist says this week’s provincial budget all but confirms that Nova Scotians are about to head to the polls.
“There’s definitely every sign that it’s a budget that is not intended to go through the full house of assembly process but is simply intended to signal an imminent election call,” Tom Urbaniak said. “More than usual, there are lines in this budget where there are some fluctuations in spending or some increases in spending but not a lot of details.”
Urbaniak said his reading is that that will give Premier Stephen McNeil room to make announcements on the campaign trail and when asked about how the initiatives will be funded he will be able to point to a line in the budget.
Finance and Treasury Minister Randy Delorey on Thursday delivered a $10.6-billion budget aimed at reducing taxes and spending on infrastructure.
The budget, which was balanced, did not introduce any new taxes but it does increase the basic income tax exemption for more than 500,000 Nova Scotians — effective Jan. 1, 2018 — from $8,481 to $11,481, for anyone with an annual income under $25,000. That change in the basic personal amount will mean 60,000 low-income earners will no longer pay any income tax.
Many of the measures in the budget that will have an impact on Cape Breton — such as funding for the second cruise ship berth, Celtic Colours and the Cape Breton Centre for Arts, Culture and Innovation in Sydney — were announced in the weeks leading up to the tabling of the budget and in advance of the anticipated election call that could come as early as this weekend.
The budget did offer some “modest but broad-based” measures that also signal an election is close, Urbaniak said, including the tax cuts for low and middle-income Nova Scotians and the expansion of the pre-primary program and school breakfast program.
“We’re looking at those sorts of modest cost but widespread impact type policies,” Urbaniak said.
For a budget positioned on the eve of an election call, Urbaniak said he was surprised it didn’t reference “a great unifying theme” that could propel it into a second mandate if the McNeil Liberals win re-election.
He did note there was a $2-million item in the budget on studying how to reduce poverty in the province, but he believes it’s late in the mandate to announce that sort of a study.
“But where you could have seen a unifying theme is the government saying our emblem going into the next mandate is no Nova Scotian and no community left behind, and then position some of what they’ve done in this budget not as some different sprinkled measures but actually tying into that theme and showing, because the analysis would already have been done, what impact that would have on reducing poverty,” Urbaniak said.
In the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, one-third of children live below the poverty line.
The supplementary budget documents show that the province is expecting modest population growth peaking at about 960,000 into the future, generally in the Halifax area with the rest of the province declining, Urbaniak noted.
“That would be an interesting conversation to have, I think, in the course of an election campaign — is that what you’re truly anticipating, have you exhausted all the options to make sure that isn’t (the case),” he said.