Political parties lashed out at the NDP platform released Tuesday, calling it a pamphlet designed solely to get elected.
NDP Leader Darrell Dexter called his platform a common sense plan to make life better for Nova Scotians. But Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil called it disappointing and misleading.
“This isn’t a platform, this is a pamphlet. And I might add, not a very good one,” he said. “It actually is not even truthful to Nova Scotians when you look at it. Line by line you can go down and you see it costed for one year, not over a mandate. It’s simply not believable.”
McNeil said the NDP document cherry-picks numbers instead of costing them out over a period of years. He singled out Dexter’s high-profile promise to remove HST from electric home heating.
The NDP document costs the promise at $28 million over one year. McNeil said they’ve ignored what the promise would cost over five or 10 years.
“This is NDP accounting and it is not believable. It will not deliver the balanced budget they’re talking about,” he said.
Tory Transportation Minister Brooke Taylor echoed that sentiment. He dismissed the NDP platform as a “sketchy leaflet that doesn’t include the comprehensiveness nor the volume that Nova Scotians deserve.”
Taylor disagreed with Dexter’s claim he could honour Conservative promises without adding to the provincial debt.
“They would have to either add to the debt or run a deficit. It’s very clear,” Taylor said.
