Opposition parties remain skeptical of forecasts ahead of N.B. budget

When New Brunswick finance minister Ernie Steeves tables his fifth budget on Tuesday, the underlying revenue assumptions are likely to receive as much scrutiny as the program spending.

For the last couple of years, the province has vastly underestimated revenue, which exploded in part due to federal transfers, inflation and unprecedented population growth. That led to record surpluses that ballooned throughout the year, but Steeves told reporters not to expect a similar trend this year.

“I think you’ll see it’s not going to be the same,” he said.

“A lot of that was non-recurring money, one-time money, and that’s where we are at this moment.”

In 2021-2022, an expected $244 million deficit exploded into a record $777 million surplus by the end of the year. This year, a projected surplus of $35 million turned into a $862 million surplus after third-quarter projections were released in the winter.

That has Liberal Leader Susan Holt approaching the budget with skepticism.

“We would prefer to see a more honest and realistic accounting of the numbers,” she said.

“We have economists that project what this is likely to be and should be, and if their figures are far off that, then we’d have to wonder why they’re padding surpluses instead of investing in New Brunswickers.”

Steeves wouldn’t discuss with reporters where the province expects revenue to go, but pointed out that New Brunswick wasn’t the only government that pegged revenue estimates much lower than where they ended up.

“I think our projections have been along the lines with a lot of the projections in Canada,” Steeves said.

“Everybody missed the mark, some more, some less. We were right in the middle of the pack.”

Green finance critic Kevin Arseneau said those mistakes had consequences for New Brunswickers. He says the overly cautious approach means that the massive surpluses of the past two years have gone toward the provincial debt, not toward addressing the twin crises of housing and health care.

“It’s been years that the government has given us budgets that weren’t reflective of the economic situation in New Brunswick,” he said.

“We’ve seen big surpluses come up and about during the year and so investments were not made when they should have been made, so I’m hoping to see a budget that’s actually respecting reality.”

The government will have an extra $250 million in recently negotiated health transfers from the federal government, which Holt says she wants to see go to addressing primary health care in the province through recruitment and retention efforts and rapidly deploying collaborative care clinics across the province.

Arseneau said actions on health care and on affordable housing are the key asks from the Green party heading into Tuesday.