Renaud Brossard is the interim Atlantic director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. (Image submitted)
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the Higgs government needs a better plan to deal with the deficits proposed in the 2021 budget.
Interim Atlantic Director Renaud Brossard says the $10.4 billion document is proposing the ‘exact opposite’ strategy of what the rest of Canada’s provinces are doing.
“Every other province has been winding down spending, focused on their budget shortfall this year, while New Brunswick has turned on the spending taps,” said Brossard.
The budget proposes running deficits of more than $200 million until 2024.
Brossard listed multiple objections to the upcoming plan, including the premium paid to government employees above their private sector employees.
“We just don’t see any justification for that, and it’s costing the province hundreds of millions of dollars every single year,” he said.
The Taxpayer Federation believes there are both short and long-term hazards to continuing deficits.
Down the road, Brossard worries about young New Brunswickers having to pay more as they enter the workforce, as the majority of the province’s population ages into retirement.
“(Young New Brunswickers) are going to have a lot more expenses to pay, and to add on top of that millions of dollars more in interest payments because of a larger debt load is simply irresponsible,” said Brossard.
He believes in the short-term, the province’s credit rating could be downgraded leading to even higher interest payments and rates.
The federation also decries subsidies driving spending in the next year. The province has promised an 18 per cent increase for Opportunities N.B.
Brossard says academic research has shown subsidies don’t help to create new jobs.
“(Subsidies) bring a whole lot of photo opportunities for politicians,” he said.
“But they don’t give a lot of new jobs. At a time when New Brunswick is trying to recover from the pandemic, trying to get more jobs, more people working with better salaries, doubling down on subsidies is just not the way to go.”
Brossard says the province would have done better to provide tax breaks for companies and residents.
Most importantly, he’d have wanted to see tax cuts for the bottom individual level.
“New Brunswickers have a relatively low disposable income compared to the average Canadians,” said Brossard. “There’s less money for New Brunswickers to invest in local businesses. There’s less money to spend in the local economy and stimulate growth.”
