Spring Budget Will Add Seven Per Cent to Health Budget

Finance Minister Neil LeBlanc today said the Nova Scotia government will add seven per cent to health-care spending next year and still deliver a balanced budget.

The minister told the Metropolitan Halifax Chamber of Commerce that another $130 million would be found for health care in his spring budget, which he intends to introduce in the legislature on April 4.

The Department of Health's budget will rise to $1.975 billion, about 40 per cent of government's program spending.

The minister termed health-care costs, and how to pay them, "the most pressing and vexing issue facing Canadians today."

"Canada's richest provinces -- Alberta and Ontario -- cannot sustain their current health-care systems without major change," the minister said. "How, then, can Nova Scotians expect to do otherwise?"

In Nova Scotia, he said, health-care changes will be designed with both cost and quality of service in mind.

"In preparing this budget, our government has wrestled with some very difficult choices," said Mr. LeBlanc. "We've come face to face with the stark reality of our fiscal situation -- and we've made our decisions. We will increase health spending, increase user fees and balance the budget."

The government will announce a new fee schedule for provincial programs and services next week.

The minister said that Nova Scotia taxpayers pay almost $900 million a year in interest charges on the provincial debt.

"We're handing almost 20 per cent of our total budget to banks in Toronto, New York and Tokyo for the privilege of carrying an $11.6 billion debt," he said. "That's roughly $2.4 million dollars a day that's not going to pay for new schools, better roads, or more medical staff. We'll spend more on servicing the debt this year than on educating our children in public schools, and that's just not right."

He said that it only makes sense to live to within our means and not leave a legacy of debt for the next generation.

Mr. LeBlanc said this is the first time in 40 years that Nova Scotia has had a budget in which current spending commitments are covered by current-year revenues, with no separate accounts for special circumstances. He described this as an all-in budget, with everything counted and accounted for. The 2002-03 budget is based on the most accurate and complete accounting applied anywhere in the nation.

"On April 4, take a look at this budget and allow yourself to envision a fiscally stable province," said Mr. LeBlanc. "Believe that it offers a better way of life for our children."