No tax or fee increases, 5 per cent increases in Senior’s Benefit, Income Support and plans to consolidate all the province’s ambulance services into one are among the highlights of yesterday’s provincial budget, but the big focus is health care.
$3.9 billion dollars or 41 per cent of the overall spending in this year’s fiscal plan is dedicated to health care and recruitment and retention in particular.
Finance Minister Siobhan Coady calls it a “balanced” approach and rejects the notion that it could be an election budget.
She says government is only two years into its mandate and there is no election in the offing.