Minister Asks for Your Input

Steele wants to hear from you in pre-budget tour

By JEFFREY SIMPSON Provincial Reporter
Thu. Jan 14 - 4:13 PM

Finance Minister Graham Steele will be travelling throughout the province this winter to discuss with Nova Scotians how to get the province's finances back on track.

Mr. Steele said Thursday that he'll hold at least 23 public meetings in 16 communities by the end of February in an attempt to come up with ideas about how raise revenue and curb spending, which is outpacing growth in the province.

“Part of the challenge here is getting people to understand the size of the financial problem and the difficulty the province is in,” Mr. Steele told a news conference in Halifax.

“We need Nova Scotians to understand the reality of the financial situation.”

Mr. Steele said it will be the largest public consultation process about finances the province has had and will cost about $63,000 as the government seeks long-term direction on where to cut costs and help the economy grow.

“We could go behind closed doors and make all the decisions that need to be made but that's not democratic government,” he said.

“Whatever solutions we come up with have to be things that the people of the province understand and accept and ideally have contributed to. And that's why we're doing it this way.”

Nova Scotia waded into red ink this fall and is now set to record a $525.2-million deficit for 2009-10.

The province will be facing deficits of $1.4 billion within the next few years if new financial measures aren't taken, Mr. Steele said.

“The most difficult question facing government is not how to spend more money,” Mr. Steele said. “The government is awash in good ideas about how to spend money in productive ways, but that's not the difficult question.

“The difficult question is where is the money going to come from to do it? And what I would say to anybody who comes to a meeting with that kind of thought is help me to know what your values and priorities are in terms of where does the money come from.”

The province is asking people who want to attend to register ahead of time so organizers get an idea of what kinds of numbers to expect, he said. Anybody can show up and say whatever they want, he said.

“This could be the biggest show in town in one place and have absolutely no interest somewhere else,” he said. “We just don't know.”

People will be seated around tables in an attempt to foster discussion among themselves after a 10-minute introductory presentation by Mr. Steele. He'll also be meeting with four chambers of commerce around the province.

Of the money being spent on the public meetings, about $35,000 will go to facilitator Becky Colwell who operates a firm called Fourth Wave Strategy Inc., $18,000 on advertising in newspapers and radio stations and $11,000 on setting up the audio systems for the sessions.

Liberal finance critic Diana Whalen said the public consultation may be a good idea and the costs are understandable.

“My concern is this whole exercise should not be used as a smokescreen for his budget decisions,” she said.

The schedule for the meetings hasn't been finalized. But the first week of meetings will be held on Jan. 22 in Sydney, Jan. 23 in Port Hawkesbury, Jan. 25 in Bridgewater and Jan. 28 in Stellarton. Meetings will also be held in Amherst, Dartmouth, Digby, Eastern Passage, Kentville, Liverpool, Lower Sackville, Tantallon, Truro, Wolfville and Yarmouth.

People can sign up for meetings at www.gov.ns.ca/finance.

(jsimpson@herald.ca)