Fees Adjusted To Preserve Services

Many provincial fees are going up in Nova Scotia to reflect changes in operating and service delivery costs. Most changes take effect on Thursday, April 1; a few changes will come into effect on May 1.

In all, there will be about 500 fee changes, adding more than $12 million to provincial revenues.

"We're increasing fees because it's costing us more to deliver services," said Minister of Finance Peter Christie. "Increasing fees reduces the pressure to reduce services."

Most increases will be limited to 6.5 per cent, reflecting changes in the cost of delivering services since the last adjustments in 2002.

"A few fees are increasing more than 6.5 per cent to more accurately reflect the true cost of the service," said Mr. Christie.

Overall program expenses rose 7.4 per cent between 2001 and 2003. During those two years, health expenditures alone are up more than 14 per cent.

"After delivering balanced budgets in 2002 and 2003, and then lowering taxes this year, Ottawa cut our transfer payments by $180 million," said Mr. Christie. "It's impossible to take that big a hit without adjusting our fees and services.

"We had hoped to see more health-care money in the federal budget, but it was not there," added Mr. Christie. "Clearly, Ottawa has a different priority list than most Nova Scotians."

Some extraordinary pressures strained the province's finances during the past year. These include the spring floods, Hurricane Juan and the winter blizzards. Out-of-province calamities such as the BSE crisis affected the province, too.

Some increases will be delayed until May 1 because of departmental notification policies. For example, renewal notices for vehicle registrations that expire on April 30 were already mailed.

A list of all the announced fee changes is available on the website at www.gov.ns.ca/finance/fees/ .