N.S. premier says no changes planned for budget cuts

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says he’s not changing course.

Nine days after his government tabled a budget with $300 million in cuts that sparked multiple protests around the province, including two this week at the legislature, Houston told reporters that he doesn’t expect any changes.

“The reality is, $1.2-billion deficit last year, $1.2-billion deficit this year, something has to give,” he told reporters at Province House.

“We’ve had to make some tough decisions.”

Despite the cuts, Houston, who was back at the House after starting the week in Ontario to attend a mining conference and other meetings, said spending in the budget is up for things such as health care, housing, long-term care and education.

Even with that, however, some people have pointed out that the grants being cut include things that help the very core services Houston’s government is aiming to protect.

Last Saturday, while addressing the African Heritage Month gala in Halifax, Houston said that if there are unintended consequences or harms as a result of the cuts and adjustments need to be made, he and his cabinet would listen.

But on Wednesday the premier said that for now no changes are planned.

“We’ll listen carefully, we’ll understand and then if we can support we’ll support. But in many of these cases the sad reality is [that] our financial situation is driving the decisions that we’re having to make.”

There have been calls from some people for the government to restore the one percentage point it removed from the HST last year, noting that the lost revenue of about $300 million would cover the cuts in the budget.

Houston said he has no plans to do that and Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said he’s not in favour of the government putting the tax back up, either.

“I’m not bailing out this government’s poor decisions,” he told reporters.

“I’m not bailing out the $7 billion they’ve spent outside the budget process, I’m not bailing out their decision to continue sole-sourcing contracts that are in the billions of dollars now. There were different decisions that should have been made.”

Rankin said the solution is for the government to begin living within its means, and slow spending growth so that it remains affordable without having to make cuts.