This week, in the midst of responding to an upsurge in COVID-19 infections and a housing crisis, the Nova Scotia government announced the launch of public pre-budget consultations.<\/p>\n
Unlike the previous NDP government and the feds, the McNeil Liberals have approached these consultations in recent years as pro-forma, ass-covering exercises. The process inaugurated this week looks like more of the same.<\/p>\n
According to the news release from the Finance Minister, Nova Scotians are \u201cencouraged to submit their budget priorities by mail, email, on Twitter or by speaking with their MLA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether anyone in government will pay attention to the letters and tweets received is unknown and the public has no way of knowing who even bothers to submit their budget priorities. Add the fact that any Liberal Spring budget would be presented under an as-yet-to-be-determined Premier and the exercise seems even more pointless.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, in the event anyone reading this intends to take part in the diminished ritual several recent publications may be useful \u2013 especially if some notion of a \u201cbuild back better\u201d Nova Scotia is a motivating factor. One report from Statistics Canada deals with Nova Scotia\u2019s fiscal past. The other, from the Parliamentary Budget Office, looks at the future. Both convey that, to paraphrase some bank\u2019s slogan, \u201cwe are richer than we think.\u201d But a third report, also from Stats Canada, demonstrates how social programs were squeezed in the process of achieving collective fiscal wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Slow debt growth<\/strong><\/p>\n The first Stats Canada report came out a couple of weeks ago. The Consolidated Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) play essentially the same role as government budgets and the annual public accounts with some important differences. For one thing, the stats are comparable across jurisdictions, meaning that when Nova Scotia\u2019s finances are being judged against those of another province, it\u2019s an apple-versus-apple comparison.<\/p>\n Secondly, the CGFS data differ from reports published by governments due to, among other factors, coverage, accounting rules and timing. Lastly, the data are based on the international government financial statistical standard, important when comparing Canada\u2019s relatively healthy fiscal situation with other countries.<\/p>\n Much more detail with charts and graphs, is available at the Nova Scotia Finance<\/a><\/strong> website. For me, the key takeaway is the Stats Canada table<\/a> <\/strong>showing debt per capita for the federal government and the provinces in 2008 and 2019. In 2019, Nova Scotia\u2019s was the lowest of any province east of the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. And as Table 1 shows, debt has grown more slowly than all but two provinces over the past 11 years.<\/p>\n Table 1<\/strong><\/p>\n