Finance Minister Craig Pardy delivers his fiscal update (VOCM News)
The new PC government is pledging to dig the province out of billions in debt by “spending smarter.”
But it’s still unclear exactly what that means.
Finance Minister Craig Pardy repeated the phrase a few times during yesterday’s fiscal update without getting into specifics.
But he did drop the updated deficit for the province, which now stands at 948 million dollars.
“There is no sugar-coating that this number is deeply troubling. These structural challenges will take time to fix,” he said. “Make no mistake: better health care, lower taxes and safer communities are still our top priorities.”
Liberal Leader John Hogan (VOCM News)
Opposition Leader John Hogan doesn’t doubt that. But he’s still waiting to hear how they’ll fulfil all their promises, with time running out on an MOU that could pay for them.
He’s also wary of the Tories’ new “spending smarter” catch phrase, and what it actually means.
“What I heard was ‘spending smarter’ which to me sounds like cuts. So I would ask the finance minister where those cuts are going to happen,” he said. “He also talked about making sure that health care is funded, but I’m not sure he answered whether he’s actually met with the health authority or not.”
Hogan says that lack of clarity already flies in the face of the new government’s promise of more transparency.
The NDP says nothing in the fiscal update instills confidence.
(Leader Jim Dinn says his party made it a priority during the election campaign to release a fully-costed, four-year platform that laid out a path to make life more affordable for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians while paying down the province’s debt in a responsible manner.
Dinn says the latest update exposes the truth about what he calls the manipulation used by the former Liberal government to convince the province that the fiscal situation wasn’t as bad as it was.
But, he says the PC government’s update inspired little hope in its ability to get finances back on track – citing the promises made by the current premier, knowing the fiscal challenges he would inherit.
Dinn accuses government of being disingenuous in suggesting it can deliver on its election promises while addressing the current fiscal realities with no concrete action plan to back that up.