Liberals, Greens make large health-care promises, PCs talk HST

New Brunswick's two opposition parties are staying busy with major health-care promises on Day 2 of the campaign, while the Progressive Conservatives touted an old promise to cut the HST.

Liberal Leader Susan Holt is targeting nurse retention with a promise of $15,000 bonuses, while Green Leader David Coon is pitching what he calls a "generational investment" of $380 million, annually, into the health-care sector.

And both leaders condemned a joke made by Blaine Higgs.

At a news conference in Oromocto, Holt promised to immediately issue retention payments to all nurses, nurse practitioners and licensed practical nurses, if her party forms the next government.  

The first payment of $10,000 would be made this calendar year, while an additional $5,000 would come the following fiscal year, she said.

"We're doing this to recognize the work and the service that nurses have given New Brunswickers through the last many years to recognize their value," Holt said, "And to show them that they have a partner in our government who will value their work, respect them, and care for them. 

Additionally, new hires will also receive the payment if they commit to staying in the province for two year, Holt said. The estimated total cost of the promise would be $74.3 million this fiscal year and $37 million the next. 

Holt said five-year-retention rates for nurses in New Brunswick are at 74 per cent, which she wants to increase to 80 per cent with the bonuses.

When asked about the high costs of the proposal, Holt defended nurse retention as a better long-term strategy and said it costs less than the travel nurse contracts under the Higgs government during COVID.

"Keeping the nurses you have is so much more efficient than the cost of bringing in new ones," she said. 

"The cost of losing them is so much greater."

Holt said Higgs disrespects health-care workers, and pointed to an incident in 2019 when he told a protesting nurse she should work in Alberta instead for better wages.

At a campaign stop in front of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, Green Leader David Coon said his strategy for health care would involve $1.5 million over four years, to address what he called the "abysmal state" of health care. 

"No more waiting lists is our goal. Think of this, there isn't a child in this province who is sitting on a wait list to access education in their schools," he said.