Tough decisions are expected as New Brunswick’s Liberal government delivers its first budget on Tuesday.
Premier Susan Holt and her MLAs campaigned on promises to improve health-care access and affordability.
However, Holt said making that happen will not be easy given the economic pressures the province is facing.
“The strong headwinds we face in the form of tariffs from our neighbours in the U.S., the continued cost of living pressures, and the workforce and immigration changes will all have a big impact on our budget,” Holt said in a social media video last week.
“But we cannot keep kicking the can down the road. Our promise was to do things differently and to do that with this budget, we will need transformational change. That means the services we deliver won’t look the same as they have in the past.”
Holt pointed to primary care as an example, noting her government has a goal of establishing at least 30 such clinics during its first three years in power.
With emergency care being the most expensive form of health care, the premier said getting people access to a health team will save money in the long run.
“This is not the situation that we had expected, but it is the one in front of us, and we have hard decisions to make. But we will not waver in our commitment to help New Brunswickers today,” Holt added.
Meanwhile, a political science professor anticipates this will be a budget like “no other in recent memory.”
J.P. Lewis said responding to U.S. tariffs is expected to be a central theme for the upcoming fiscal year.
“Maybe we’ll see the government depart from some of the promises or priorities that they had identified during the campaign, and they have good cover because of the uncertainty of what comes next with the provincial economy,” said Lewis.
“We saw the British Columbia budget, similarly to New Brunswick’s, followed after an election year, and they changed their tune on a lot of the priorities and items they were going to be spending or acting on.”
While this might typically signal trouble for a government, Lewis believes New Brunswickers will be sympathetic given the current economic challenges.
He pointed to recent polling which shows New Brunswickers and Canadians are fairly united in their support for how governments are responding to the tariff threats.
“If there was ever a time to depart from where people thought the program was going to go and continue with public support, it would be this,” said Lewis, adding it still throws a “major wrench” into the plans of a young government.
The Liberals had promised a balanced budget during each of their four years in office, but Lewis thinks that will be challenging to achieve this year.
