Childcare gets top billing
Biggest increases in education, health; deficit projected at $93 million
P.E.I.’s 2022 budget focused on significant injections of funding for health and education, including $27 million in new funding to improve wages in the early learning sector and make daycare more affordable.
The $2.7 billion budget will see $137 million in new program spending and projects a deficit of $92.9 million. Health P.E.I. and the Department of Education see the largest increases to their budgets compared to 2021.
The budget includes significant spending for health-care recruitment, expansion of the province’s daycare sector, hiring of additional teachers and school staff and programs designed to reduce P.E.I.’s carbon footprint.
Finance Minister Darlene Compton focused less on the theme of COVID-19 recovery in this year’s budget speech, which was delivered in the legislature on Feb. 24, aiming instead at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals of climate action, gender equality and eliminating poverty.
“Every initiative in this budget is linked to one of these goals and, in most cases, linked to many of those goals,” Compton told the legislature.
The $27-million increase in funding for daycare is occurring in large part due to support from the federal government.
In the fall federal election, the Trudeau Liberals pledged to provide $10 a day childcare across Canada.
The budget also includes $787,000 in funding to provide free school supplies for students from kindergarten to Grade 9. More than $12 million will support the hiring of 40 additional school staff in both the Public Schools Branch and the Commission Scolaire de Langue Francaise.
A $945,000 funding increase to the George Coles Bursary will provide a $400 increase in yearly bursary amounts for post-secondary students.
In health care, the budget allocated $8.7 million to recruit 14 new doctors across several specialties. A further $2.7 million is allocated to medical homes and neighbourhoods, which are collaborative medical practices involving doctors, nurses and other professionals. These centres are intended to address the 22,479 Islanders on the patient registry.
A $1.1-million allocation will create a “float pool” of 25 nurses to address short-term vacancies in the acute care sector.
The budget also allocates an additional $1.5 million for a previously announced program to provide free dental care to low-income Islanders. Additional health-care funding will focus on services provided to seniors, including a $1.2-million influx in funding for home care services and programs. The budget also includes an additional $100,000 to both the province’s long-term care sector and to “modernize the inspection process” for private homes.
Significant new funding has been invested in climate programs, including $2.1 million in new funding for a rebate for the purchase of electric cars, as well as $5.6 million for an existing heat pump rebate program. The province’s transit network, including the recently established routes linking Charlottetown to Eastern Kings county, will see an influx of $1.5 million to expand existing routes. The budget also pledged to make T3 Transit and rural transit routes free for Islanders under the age of 18.
The province has pledged to eliminate homelessness by 2025 and poverty overall by 2035.
On this end, the budget includes a $1-million increase in spending for rental subsidies, such as the mobile rental voucher program. The province projects it will spend $14 million in rental subsidies this year. Finally, one of the costliest elements of the budget is an across-the-board tax cut, which will raise the basic personal exemption of Islanders from $11,250 to $12,000.
OPPOSITION REACTS
The budget’s hefty price tag did not impress Green Opposition finance critic Hannah Bell.
In a detailed speech before the legislature, Bell argued the budget failed to address a profound lack of fairness, largely exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The pandemic gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we have structured and operated our society,” Bell said. “As we enter our third year of the pandemic, there is a growing sense of dread that the window for systemic change has closed.”