‘The government has failed Nova Scotians again’
Cape Bretoners react to the provincial budget
Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has unveiled a budget that increases health-care spending but one Cape Breton MLA says it’s not nearly enough.
The budget, which was released Tuesday, is an updated version of the one tabled in April then shelved when the May 30 election was called.
The $10.5-billion reintroduced document increases spending by about $19 million, including an additional $6.2 million for health. But after an election where a provincewide doctor shortage and long wait times were key issues, the budget set out by Premier Stephen McNeil’s government falls short of addressing many health-care needs — particularly when there is a $21.3-million surplus, said Cape Breton Centre MLA Tammy Martin.
“I think the government has failed Nova Scotians again with the lack of investment into health care, particularly around the doctor shortage, or what I refer to as a crisis because I believe we are in a crisis situation,” she said. “As well there was no commitment to maintain the services that are provided in the rural sites in Cape Breton.
“I think it’s ridiculous to maintain that type of surplus at the cost of taxpayers’ health.”
Martin said health care is a hot button issue in her constituency where the New Waterford Consolidated Hospital experiences frequent emergency room closures and the community’s mobile health-care team has been redeployed to various hospitals due to a lack of ER nurses at other hospitals.
“Time and time and time again it’s New Waterford’s hospital that’s paying the price of the health-care crisis in Nova Scotia. We don’t have doctors, our ER is closed, and now they have an emergency room nursing shortage and they take our mobile care team.”
Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Adrian White said the province’s tax rates are an impediment to attracting doctors to Cape Breton. He said doctors often end up losing more than half of their salaries to taxes.
“All taxes in Nova Scotia right now are set at uncompetitive levels. If you’re a physician and you’re making a good salary, you’re probably in the income tax range of 54 per cent for the province of Nova Scotia. That is really punitive. If you were a physician looking at a location in Canada, Nova Scotia probably wouldn’t be high on your list because of the punitive income tax rates,” he said, adding that the socalled bracket creep is also a major annoyance to many Nova Scotians. Along with Prince Edward Island and Manitoba, Nova Scotia is one of the few provinces that doesn’t index personal tax exemptions for inflation, making it a hidden tax grab.
“Your personal exemption in Nova Scotia becomes less and less of an exemption as inflation erodes it on you because it’s not able to move — it’s frozen.”
While the budget delivered by Finance and Treasury Board Minister Karen Casey does reduce taxes for 1,800 small businesses by increasing the small business tax threshold to $500,000 from $350,000, White said it’s far short of what’s needed to encourage people to open up shop in Nova Scotia.
“It’s a step in the right direction, it brings Nova Scotia into better alignment with that tax and how it is set in other provinces in the country, so it’s not moving Nova Scotia ahead of the pack, it’s bringing Nova Scotia to a level where it should have been all along,” he said. “If you want to excite the small business world, put that tax level at $1 million and then that will make a difference in how Nova Scotia looks to the small business community, who might be contemplating setting up a franchise or a division here in the province of Nova Scotia.”
White said the situation for Sydney business owners is even more challenging because the commercial tax rates are so high.
“On top of those high and uncompetitive income taxes and the small business tax level, you also have uncompetitive commercial tax rates in Sydney, which are third-highest in the country after Toronto and Vancouver,” he said. “That makes it even more punitive to set up a shop or a retail storefront in the Charlotte Street area, simply because of the high level of taxation. That’s one of the reasons why we have a lot of openings on Charlotte Street — it’s simply very expensive to operate a storefront with commercial tax rates that are that high.”