Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston is launching a new budget consultation process inviting the public to build and submit their own plans for the province’s finances.
Houston’s plan would allow members of the public to build their budget and submit their proposals to the government through a new provincial website.
“We’re putting the actual government numbers in front of Nova Scotians and showing them this is where the money goes, these are the pressures that we face,” Houston told reporters on Friday. “And then we will ask them a simple question: what would you do? If you spend more here, where do you spend less? … If you want something new, how would you pay for it?”
The invitation comes a few months after the Houston government’s last budget provoked a public outcry and days of protests around the legislature. The public pressure drove Houston to reverse about $53 million worth of grant reductions before the revised budget was adopted in March.
Protesters also surrounded a car carrying Houston and some of his staff after a speech at Wolfville, N.S.’s Acadia University in July, with one man charged after allegedly climbing on top of the vehicle and smashing the windshield.
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On Friday, Houston said that the government’s budgeting process is similar to how families plan their own finances at the kitchen table. He said there are necessities such as rent, groceries and power that must be covered first, and other things that families want to spend money on, but aren’t necessarily vital.
But he also noted that some options would be off the table for anyone who participates in the new consultation.
For instance, the website won’t allow people to hike taxes or fees, increase the deficit or reduce funding for the Department of Health and Wellness. Houston said that’s so responses are realistic and don’t come in asking the government to double taxes or cut 100 per cent of health funding.
Besides health, Nova Scotians can increase or decrease all other department budgets by five per cent, and adjust funding for individual programs. If a person wants to increase funding in one area, they must find savings in another.
The Houston government’s last budget initially reduced discretionary grants by about $130 million, many of which supported the arts, First Nations, African Nova Scotians and people with disabilities.
The budget also landed with a record $1.2-billion deficit, despite having more than $304 million in cuts, before Houston agreed to reverse some of the spending reductions.
“We got too clinical (in the last budget) with spreadsheets and less human with understanding the desires of Nova Scotians,” Houston said. “And my commitment was not to let that happen again, so this is a very clear move toward delivering on that commitment. This is the opportunity for people to have your say. To say ‘Lift your head up from your spreadsheet and listen to how I think, and how I feel about how money should be spent.'”
Houston said he and Finance Minister John Lohr can be lightening rods at public meetings and he doesn’t want to be a distraction, which is why Public Service Commission Minister Twila Grosse is leading the consultation process.
He said he still hopes to attend some of the meetings, joking that he might hide behind a curtain.
Liberal caucus chair Becky Druhan said in a statement Friday that the premier is asking the public to fix a problem he created, and that this year’s controversial budget was part of a broader pattern of disregard for the public.
“That gives Nova Scotians every right to question whether this consultation is genuine,” she said. “A few weeks of pre-budget meetings cannot erase the government’s record of shutting people out.”
An independent committee, led by Grosse, will go through the budget submissions and submit a report to the finance minister as the government prepares its next fiscal plan. In-person consultations wrap up on Oct. 8.
I wonder how many submissions they’ll receive to lower certain funding models and redirect those funds towards lowering the costs of purple hair dye, facial piercings and neck tatts?