Hundreds of Halifax-area residents got a lesson on the complexities of provincial budgets yesterday courtesy of Finance Minister Graham Steele.
Steele, who is hosting a series of public consultations on how to bring the province back into fiscal balance, landed in HRM for two separate sessions in Dartmouth and Eastern Passage.
The first event, held at the Dartmouth North Community Centre, attracted a crowd of more than 200 that included teachers, health-care workers, students, retirees, and business owners — all with their own ideas about how to keep the province’s deficit from ballooning to $1.4 billion by 2013.
“Even though we’re in a recession, we have to build towards tomorrow,” said Gina Boyd, a mother of four who works at a local health centre. “I don’t want to see valuable services cut, especially in public education.”
Will Vandermeulen, a 24-year-old NSCAD student, said he wasn’t sure what to expect from the proceedings.
“I’m just here to be a part of the discussion,” he said.
The participants were divided into groups and given 45 minutes to answer a series of questions about how to cut the deficit, and how long the process should take.
“We don’t have enough money to fund every good idea,” Steele warned the crowd. “We can only afford great ideas.”
The suggestions, shared at the end of the meeting, ranged from creating new incentives to attracting new business owners, to increasing the number of income-tax brackets in the province.
Steele said some common themes have emerged at most of the meetings. Many people seem to agree, for example, that it should take between three to five years to balance the provincial budget.
“We’re just getting to the point where people are starting to understand the size of the problem,” he said. “We need to be talking about solutions that add up to $1.4 billion … so it’s not easy.”
Next stops
The finance minister’s road show has now completed seven of its 23 scheduled stops. The next meetings are set for Monday in Kentville and Wolfville.
