FREDERICTON — New Brunswick's finance minister says the provincial budget to be tabled Tuesday afternoon isn't one he is looking forward to delivering, but it's one the province needs.
Ernie Steeves made the comment Monday as he stood outside a shoe repair shop in Fredericton. Finance ministers often pose with a new pair of shoes ahead of delivering a budget, but Steeves said he was having an existing pair refurbished.
While the minister described the budget as not one "that I particularly want to deliver," he said the news is not all bad.
"I think New Brunswick is doing well, and our recovery shows us doing better than a lot of Canada," he said.
Steeves would not offer any specifics ahead of the budget's release in the legislature but said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic makes a surplus unlikely.
"You're always worried about whether you're doing everything you can to make New Brunswick better, and I think we are," he said.
The Progressive Conservative government's last budget was delivered March 10, 2020, just before the pandemic hit, and Premier Blaine Higgs has joked that it became irrelevant within minutes of being passed.
Steeves has given Tuesday's budget the title "Reinventing New Brunswick Together."
Liberal Opposition Leader Roger Melanson said he's looking for the government to make targeted investments.
In particular, Melanson said he wants government to announce financial help for tourism, mental health services and long-term care.
"Our capacity to offer mental health services is a deficit right now. We need to increase that capacity. We know our long-term care sector has got a huge deficit in terms of recruiting and retaining employees," Melanson said.
Mental health services have been in the spotlight after the family of 16-year-old Lexi Daken of Fredericton said she waited eight hours in a Fredericton hospital emergency department for mental health crisis care before leaving without getting any help. She died by suicide less than a week later.
"I'm looking for the five-year mental health strategy to be accelerated to three years," Melanson said, adding that more funding will be needed for that.
The New Brunswick government released it's third-quarter results for the 2020-21 fiscal year last month.
Those results projected a deficit of $12.7 million compared to a budgeted surplus of $92.4 million. The net debt is projected to reach $13.9 billion by the end of this month, an increase of $209.9 million from budget.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Mar. 16, 2021.
Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press
