N.S. Liberals vow broad middle-class tax cut

• Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has promised an average $160 tax cut for half the province’s population, in a surplus budget that seeds the ground for an election campaign that may begin within days.

Premier Stephen McNeil touted the move as proof his restraint of public sector wages over the past year has permitted him to shift money back into taxpayers’ pockets, even as he books a $26-million surplus in this year’s $10.5-billion budget.

“This is the way through the tax structure to leave more money in the pockets of Nova Scotians who require it the most,” he said Thursday after the budget was tabled.

The pledge would reduce taxes for 500,000 low and middle-income earners by increasing the basic personal exemption by up to $3,000 for taxable income up to $75,000.

The change is weighted toward lower income Nova Scotians, and will also mean 60,000 poorer Nova Scotians will no longer pay provincial income taxes after the program kicks in Jan. 1, 2018.

But the opposition swiftly pointed out all this amounts to a set of election campaign promises which may or may not come true, as an election call may come as early as this weekend.

And Tory Leader Jamie Baillie said a deluge of almost $130 million in spending in recent months has shown the government lacks a clear plan for the province’s beleaguered health care system.

Over the past two years, stagnant funding and delayed spending on health facilities has accompanied stories

WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE CRUMBLING STATE OF OUR HEALTH SYSTEM.

of bursting hospital pipes, shortages of family doctors and — over the past winter — a dying patient left to languish for over six hours in the hallway of an overcrowded emergency department.

“In year 4 (of the McNeil government) ... we all know about the crumbling state of our health system and still we’re looking for where they want to go,” said Baillie.

“Perhaps that’s what the election is about, which is who has vision for where to take health care.”

The health budget is projected to rise almost two per cent, to about $4.2 billion — or about four of every 10 dollars spent by the province.

The increases include a bump in funding for the education of family doctors.

The province will also spend about $6 million for new collaborative care centres — an already announced measure that comes as the Liberals have conceded they’ve failed in an election promise to provide each citizen with access to a family doctor.