to a bad start in Nova Scotia.
Well, bad start if you are Premier Rodney MacDonald trying to explain that a budget which is in the red is supposedly in the black but only if a piece of legislation was changed to allow the government to divert cash from debt reduction to program spending.
How much the budget is out of whack depends on who is doing the math, apparently, but there’s no doubt the government budget bill brought in spending higher than revenues.
That alls sounds rather odd in a province where the government has flatly rejected any balanced budget commitments, let alone mandating it in law. They’ve even rejected investing massive gobs of cash flowing from offshore oil prices, preferring instead to save them up – temporarily – to cover deficits in at least the next two fiscal years.
How much cash?
$1.8 billion, apparently, of which $1.3 billion will cover the overspending in the current fiscal year.
Nova Scotians, meanwhile, will head to the polls June 9 to elect a new government. The opposition teamed up to defeat MacDonald’s minority Tory government on a confidence vote on the budget measures.
The opposition parties can’t promise they wouldn’t also bring in a deficit budget if they win the election.
The stakes are high, though with all three parties apparently polling around the same numbers. As some astute Nova Scotian observers have pointed out in the past, the New Democrats may have a tougher time of things than it appears since their votes appear clustered in several areas and are therefore considered “less efficient” when it comes to winning seats across the province.
Sign of the high stakes came early with the release in early April by an unnamed Liberal campaign worker of a photograph of New Democrat candidate, actress Lenore Zann. The photo shows Zann topless and comes from her appearance on the cable show The L Word.
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Related: Issues, via Canadian Press