N.S. politicians prepare for the legislature's spring session — and an opening day budget

MLAs are scheduled to return to the Nova Scotia Legislature for the spring session on Monday and three sources tell CBC News that Finance Minister John Lohr plans to table his budget that same day.

It’s unusual for a session to begin on a Monday and even more so for a budget to be tabled at the same time. If the plan holds, it would be just the fourth time in more than 40 years that it’s happened.

“This is the latest in a string of things that this government has done to make it as difficult as possible for the public to know what is happening,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said in an interview.

“The thing about Mondays is that we meet at night and the other thing about Mondays is that there’s no question period. So they have chosen the moment with the least amount of scrutiny to deliver the most important information.”

While proceedings at Province House start at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and at 9 a.m. on Fridays, Monday sittings begin at 4 p.m. That means it will be hours later than normal before the public learns how Premier Tim Houston’s government plans to tackle a deficit which at last check was $1.4 billion.

Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said the plan is a sign the Progressive Conservatives want to get through the session as fast as possible with a budget the premier has already suggested would include difficult decisions.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” Rankin said in an interview.

“They’ve made decisions over the last number of years that have wasted our fiscal capacity.”

Houston and Lohr have both declined in recent weeks to confirm whether the budget would come the same day the session opens.

The last two times a budget came at the start of a week are notable.

In 2009, the minority PC government of Rodney MacDonald tabled its budget on a Monday with ongoing election speculation. Not long after, politicians were pounding campaign signs into lawns.

John Savage’s Liberal government began its budget process in 1994 on a Monday but that was only after an attempt to start it the previous Friday was thwarted by hundreds of angry unionized construction workers whose protest effectively took over Province House, prompting business to be paused for the day.

In 1983, John Buchanan’s PC government tabled a budget — aimed at confronting a deficit — on a Monday.

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, said it would not come as a surprise if the PCs follow suit.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to think that Premier Houston or his government feel that they need to put themselves in front of media scrutiny or in front of public scrutiny,” she said in an interview. “There’s no reason to think that transparency is a value for this government.”

The upcoming session finds the PCs in unfamiliar territory. With record revenues tied to population growth slowing to a trickle, Houston’s team will be forced to make decisions and prioritize in a way it’s not had to since first coming to power in 2021.

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No one from the government was made available for an interview, but Houston and other members of his team have talked about a continued focus on core issues, such as health care, housing, education and affordability, while finding ways to reduce spending.

The premier recently said that will likely mean impacts to the public service and government programs.

While legislative plans remain unknown, the government will have to introduce a bill to create a new seat in the legislature for the electoral district of Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay, following a report last month from an independent commission.

Chender’s legislative agenda will include bills focused on the affordability of housing and power rates, along with measures to make the government more accountable.

At a news conference last week, she said after five years of a PC government, there remain ongoing problems with emergency department closures and the affordability of housing and child care, which represent unfulfilled promises.

“Unaffordable power, lack of access to housing and health care aren’t inevitables," she said.

"They are the result of choices. If this government was serious about fixing these problems for Nova Scotians, they would be feeling those solutions by now.”

Rankin said his caucus is looking for signs that the government is committed to living within its means after overspending budgets each year by about $1 billion or more since Houston became premier.

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The Liberals plan to push the government to make good on an agreement promising an average cost of $10 per day for child care.

Rankin said the Liberals will also push for legislation to create an independent watchdog similar to the parliamentary budget officer in Ottawa.

“It all relates, I think, to a government that has overspent, that had no discipline on any of their departments and when it came to having more revenue that came in they literally just spent it.”

Whether a ballooning deficit and potential cuts have political implications for Houston remains to be seen. Provinces such as British Columbia and New Brunswick have both recently posted dismal financial updates.

Alex Marland, a political science professor at Acadia University, said the shift happening at the provincial level reflects something similar with the federal government.

After years of extra spending, Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking for ways to get things under control.

“The idea that somehow you can keep employing people and borrowing money, that attitude seems to be changing and so it’s putting pressure on provincial governments to make sure that they’re reining in their spending, as well.”

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