N.L. slashes deficit in better-news budget that maintains record spending
CBC
Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting a brightening financial picture in a stay-the-course budget that doesn't follow through on previously planned spending reductions.
"A budget is about choice," Finance Minister Siobhan Coady said in her budget speech Thursday afternoon in the House of Assembly in St. John's.
"Your government has chosen to support you, to invest in health, education, the economy."
That choice includes some measures to assist residents struggling with inflation and cost-of-living pressures, along with new tax credits to boost targeted industries.
The provincial deficit for the just-ended 2021-22 fiscal year came in at $400 million, less than half of initial projections.
For 2022-23, the deficit is expected to be lower again, at $351 million.
Those numbers mark a sharp turnaround from the dire early pandemic days, when COVID-fuelled fiscal chaos punched a massive hole in the balance sheet.
The 2020-21 deficit was nearly $1.5 billion.
The province has reiterated that it is now on track to balance the books by 2026.
The budget has a few new relief measures to, according to Coady, "put money back in people's pockets."
She says there are no provincial fee increases or tax increases.
Retail sales tax on home insurance will be eliminated for one year.
The cost of registering passenger vehicles, light trucks and taxis will be cut by 50 per cent, also for one year. Registration for a car will go from $180 to $90.
There are also new tax credits "to encourage business investment and grow our economy," Coady said.
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