Opposition Leaders Slam Lack of Spending Restraint, 'Artificial Surplus' Presented in Budget - VOCM

The leader of the official opposition calls the provincial budget for 2019 a “failure”.

Ches Crosbie pointed to the government’s goal of returning to a surplus by 2022 as an example. He says the government’s increase in spending in this budget means that we will not return to surplus by the target date.

Crosbie says the government has shown no restraint with this budget, and that they have blown their chances of returning to a surplus by the target of 2022 because of that. By that standard, he says, this budget is a failure.

Crosbie did say, however, that there is one thing about the budget he does like; that it will never be passed.

He says that this budget is just smoke and mirrors for the election so that people won’t ask the hard questions. He says that approach is not honest nor democratic, but it does give the PC’s a chance to throw the Liberals out sooner.

Budget Boasts Artificial Surplus, says Coffin

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Alison Coffin says the provincial budget was very “underwhelming”.

Coffin thought that with all of the announcements made by government ahead of the budget, there would be a lot more to the document.

She says they’ve moved around a lot of numbers and they’ve created an “artificial surplus.” She’s concerned with the way the budget is being presented.

Coffin says there were some highlights in the budget, such as $1-million in arts funding, but there are a lot of negatives as well. There was no gender analysis, no “meaningful” diversification of the economy and nothing on environment or climate change.

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April 17, 2019 at 03:43PM