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.
City council has approved a 3.6 per cent increase in municipal property taxes for next year. The decision follows five days of debate on adjustments to next year's civic budget.
Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish has resigned from the Peel Police Service Board.
Public health in Yellowknife is reducing some services over the holiday season due to staffing shortages.
Two premiers are asking Ottawa to cover the provincial cost of the Trudeau government's promised tax holiday.
Former Alberta MLA Derek Fildebrandt fist-pumped from the prisoner's box as a Calgary judge acquitted him on all four counts of uttering threats to a group of 13- and 14-year-old boys whom he chased in a truck through his southwest neighbourhood last spring.
Buddhist monks and nuns who live in eastern Prince Edward Island say they were disappointed to hear some of the concerns expressed at a planning meeting this past week in the Town of Three Rivers.
The Alberta government reiterated its plans Friday to move forward on a passenger rail system for the province, with a goal to finish its master plan by summer 2025.
Pat King, a key figure in what became the Freedom Convoy that paralyzed downtown Ottawa in early 2022, has been found guilty of five charges for his role in the protest.
The Ontario government is looking to expand presumptive coverage for kidney and colorectal cancers for firefighters, whose occupation puts them at a higher risk for the diseases.
A Quesnel, B.C. man serving a life sentence for a 2017 Yukon murder will be able to resume fighting his conviction after a panel of appeal court judges agreed to reinstate his case.
A new report says smokers are spending less money on cigarettes in Alberta, while hundreds of millions of dollars are instead being used to buy illegal smokes for a fraction of the price.