Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has re-introduced a $10.5-billion budget for 2017-18 with a slight increase in health spending after a spring election that focused on a lack of doctors and long wait times for care.
Overall, the majority government has added $6.2 million for health — a tiny fraction of the $4.2 billion annual departmental budget — to the totals released in an April 27 budget that was shelved due to a May 30 election.
Meanwhile, an unexpected clean-up operation on a waterfront development in Halifax is consuming $4.7 million that wasn’t in the pre-election calculations. Overall, there is $19 million more in spending than in April’s document.
The budget still has a $21.3-million surplus, but that’s $4.6 million lower than the original budget due to a drop in revenue from income tax and the increase in departmental spending.
It’s the second budget in a row with a surplus, though the opposition parties have both criticized the Liberals for neglecting social programs for people who are sick, receive care in nursing homes or are living with physical and intellectual disabilities.
Finance Minister Karen Casey said the budget document “builds” on the earlier budget and fulfills the Liberal promises to deliver back-to-back surpluses and lower taxes.
“We made some difficult, but necessary, decisions to live within our means. At the same time, government made key investments in communities across the province,” she said.
“Nova Scotians … want more timely access to primary care and to family doctors. They want shorter wait times for surgeries, and they want better access to mental health services.”
The extra health spending includes $2.7 million for orthopedic knee and hip surgeries, $2.0 million for mental health, $800,000 to assist people who need cancer drugs and have limited private insurance coverage, and an added $800,000 for the opiod use and overdose program.
The budget keeps the $2.4 million promised in April to support the recruitment and retention of doctors. The funding creates 10 new places in the family residency program at Dalhousie University and opens 10 new spaces a program that assists international doctors in establishing practices.
There’s also an additional $2.5 million for the Atlantic Fisheries Fund, a joint program with Ottawa that funds research and innovation in the fish and seafood sector.
The Liberals are keeping a promise to reduce taxes by an average of $160 for a half million low and middle-income earners.
They’re doing that by increasing the basic personal exemption by up to $3,000 for taxable income up to $75,000.
The change is weighted towards lower income Nova Scotians, and will also mean 63,000 poorer Nova Scotians will no longer pay provincial income taxes after the program kicks in Jan. 1, 2018.
Over the past two years, stagnant funding and delayed spending on health facilities has accompanied stories of bursting hospital pipes, shortages of family doctors and — over the past winter — a dying patient left to languish for over six hours in the hallway of an overcrowded emergency department.
Earlier this year, the suicides of three young students in Cape Breton prompted calls for more prevention and support programs. The budget adds money for social workers, guidance counsellors and mental health clinicians.
“During the last campaign, Nova Scotians said clearly that mental health was a priority for them,” said Casey in her speech. “We will hire more clinicians, put more support in underserviced areas, and cut wait times for mental health care.”
In the April budget, the health budget rose almost two per cent — and it is now consuming about four of every 10 dollars spent by the province as its population continues to be among the country’s oldest.
The Liberals say they are still planning to spend about $6 million for new collaborative care centres — one of the measures aimed at remedying problems in primary care, and addressing the premier’s 2013 election promise to provide each citizen with access to a family doctor.
The province has said it will impose or negotiate wage packages that limit the 2017-18 increase to one per cent, having set that pattern in a fractious labour dispute this winter with the teachers’ union.
The teachers’ union has taken the legislated settlement to court, but the province hasn’t set aside any additional money if it loses that case and has to spend more on education this year.
The cost for the middle class tax cut in the 2017-18 budget remains at $22 million, as it begins on Jan. 1. The annual cost to the treasury will be $85 million.
In addition, a previously announced tax cut on small business income will cost about $14.1 million a year.
The province’s net debt is about $15 billion, which is $15,860 per person.
The province is still projecting a series of surpluses extending into 2020-21, with the goal of reducing debt to 30 per cent of gross domestic product by 2024.