Budget documents for Nova Scotia's 2020-21 Budget titled "Better Together". Photo: Evan Taylor
The provincial Liberals are out with the 2020-21 budget.
Budget 2020-21 estimates a surplus of $55 million from $11.60 billion in revenue and $11.54 billion in expenses.
The province also projects balanced budgets for the next three years.
The document, touted as the fifth consecutive balanced budget, re-iterates the $1.04 billion dollars in capital spending announced last week.
During her speech on Tuesday, Finance and Treasury Board Minister Karen Casey said that Nova Scotians have flagged access to quality health care as their number one priority.
“The overall investment in the health care sector has grown to 4.82 billion dollars,” she said. “Budget 2020-21 includes 86.1 million dollars in response to increased demand to services,” Casey said.
In an attempt to address physician shortages in the province, the budget included $75.3 million for the new Doctor’s Master Agreement, which determines how much doctors are paid.
The government says that these changes will make family, emergency and anesthesia doctors the highest paid in the Atlantic Canada. It also claims it will make specialists like psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology the highest paid in the region.
Other health spending was detailed with $4.7 million going toward Dalhousie Medical School. The funding will add 12 first-year seats with an emphasis being put on finding students from rural, Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous backgrounds.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority will also be receiving a $77.7 million increase to its operating budget to help cope with increasing demand for its services.
Mental health and addiction treatment services will receive $550,000 in additional funding, a figure Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston called, “underwhelming.”
“It represents about fifty cents per person. So if you have a friend who is struggling and take them out for a cup of coffee you are investing more in mental health than this government,” replied Houston on Tuesday.
This is the first part of an ongoing series of stories on the Nova Scotia 2020-21 Budget.
