Former Provincial Finance Minister Blaine Higgs is accusing the Minister responsible for the Strategic Programme Review, Victor Boudreau of spinning a tale that isn’t true.
Higgs argues there isn’t a structural deficit but there is a need for structural reform, pointing to education with declining enrollment and less than satisfactory academic achievement. He argues real change can only happen if the responsiblity for doing that is placed in the hands of the educators.
He says the provincial government made the deficit worse by over spending and raising the H-S-T was the only thing on the table, adding the people who took time out to make suggestions at the Strategic Program Review meetings can be justified in feeling betrayed.
He says the government missed an opportunity to make the tax system fairer and increase revenue by 47 million dollars at the same time by eliminating rebate of all provincial taxes to First Nations communities which Higgs calls unique to New Brunswick and unfair to commercial enterprises in neighbouring communities that have to make do without such a tax advantage.
