Rounding up budgets: British Columbia, Nunavut and Nova Scotia

‘Tis the season – budget season! During the spring months, Canada’s federal, territorial and provincial governments are hard at work crunching numbers, fine-tuning policies and programs, and churning out budgets that will shape where we live, retire and play. In mid-February 2020, we saw budgets released by British Columbia, Nunavut and Nova Scotia. Read on to learn more about these territorial and provincial budgets and how they relate to Federal Retirees’ priorities.

• British Columbia
• Nunavut
• Nova Scotia
   

British Columbia

On Feb. 18, 2020, British Columbia’s finance minister, Carole James, delivered the province’s 2020 budget and three-year fiscal plan. The NDP delivered its third balanced budget, which includes an increased tax rate for the richest British Columbians and the introduction of a sales tax on sweetened carbonated drinks to fund increased spending on health care, education and families.

On the health-care front, the province will invest an additional $1 billion over the next three years to improve the quality and sustainability of front-line health-care services, advance patient outcomes and manage caseload demands in response to British Columbia’s growing and aging population. Specifically, this new funding will help reduce wait times for preventative and diagnostic imaging as well as for hip, knee and dental surgeries. It will also fund ongoing supports for cancer treatment and overdose response and to make prescription medications more affordable for low- and middle-income individuals and families.

The increased spending will also go toward improving care for seniors, with new investments in primary care, home care, long-term care, assisted living and respite services. In her address to the Legislative Assembly, Minister James stated that “after years of cuts, investments in long-term care and respite services are giving seniors and their caregivers a well-deserved boost.” These investments include infrastructure upgrades, new facilities and increased services. New or upgraded hospitals are already on the way for 13 communities, and 12 new urgent and primary care centres are open, with two more on the way. These centres allow people to connect with teams of doctors and nurse practitioners, providing accessible alternatives for people without a family doctor who might normally turn to hospitals for care.

The province has also earmarked $2.4 billion over the next three years for increases in wages and benefits for the health-care sector, consistent with the Sustainable Services Negotiating Mandate. The Sustainable Services Negotiating Mandate applies to all unionized public-sector employers whose employees’ collective agreements expire on or after Dec. 31, 2018. Its purpose is to balance improved service delivery for British Columbians with fair and reasonable wage increases while ensuring outcomes are affordable and managed within the province’s fiscal plan.

The budget also highlights the elimination of the Medical Services Plan premiums at the beginning of this year, saving individuals up to $900 per year and families up to $1,800 per year, and marks the one-year anniversary of the elimination or reduction of the Fair PharmaCare deductibles for 240,000 families.

Liberal finance critic Shirley Bond responded to the budget announcement stating that, while the NDP’s tax-and-spend policies have resulted in 23 new taxes since 2017, the party has done little to increase affordability for British Columbians. She also criticized the budget for failing to provide a “robust, thoughtful strategic growth plan” to strengthen and grow the province’s economy.

Learn more about British Columbia’s 2020 budget.

Nunavut

On Feb. 19, 2020, Nunavut’s 2020-2021 budget was released. The territory expects to spend $2.33 billion over the next fiscal year, with $37.9 million in new funding for health care, the largest spending increase for any category. This will leave the territory with a slight deficit of $30 million, should it spend the full $50 million set aside for contingencies.

"This budget aims to foster individual and community wellness, particularly in health care and support to families and individuals in crisis," said Finance Minister George Hickes in his speech to the legislative assembly.

Looking at health care specifically, $17.8 million will go toward boosting the medical travel fund, increasing spending from $90 million to $107.6 million. This is the largest budget item in the 2020 budget and responds to the growing demand and costs associated with medical travel, which has seen an average increase of 10 per cent per year. Demand for medical travel is being driven by population growth but also by other factors, such as people living longer and improvements in diagnostics, which means people need more care and longer terms of care. As always, officials point to the need to balance the benefits and costs of flying Nunavummiuts out of the territory for care and increasing services in the territory so that they can receive care in their communities. To that end, the territorial government will continue to monitor medical travel to ensure the effectiveness of health-care services.

The government is also expanding territorial services, setting aside $630,000 to hire another registered nurse, a central sterilizing room technician, an ultrasound technician and a hospital maintainer in Iqaluit. Another $900,000 is earmarked to hire new staff for the tuberculosis community capacity-building program.

The budget also allocates $5.1 million for mental health treatment outside the territory. These funds will be used to ensure Nunavummiuts are receiving the mental health care and services they need, which are sometimes only available at facilities outside Nunavut.

Determining how to provide the health-care services people in the territory need is an ongoing challenge. “With 25 remote communities and two million square kilometres—you guys have heard it all before,” Hickes said. “Providing health-care across that vast of a geographic footprint is massive. It stretches our capacity.” He also notes that the government has learned to better spend the federal funds it receives, which account for the majority of the territory’s budget but cites the need for more money generally to account for the service delivery challenges faced in Nunavut, something which he says his government will discuss with the federal government moving forward.

Over the next three years, the government will also focus on several priorities, including evaluating the territory’s health insurance program, continuing to work toward enhanced and appropriate in-territory medical infrastructure and clinical care for Elders, continuing to expand the mental health and addictions system of care across the service continuum with a focus on paraprofessionals and continuing to develop and introduce health privacy legislation.

Learn more about Nunavut’s 2020 budget. 

Nova Scotia

On Feb. 25, 2020, the Nova Scotia Liberal government presented what some have described as an “election budget.” This fifth consecutive balanced budget was also flush with spending. The province’s $11.6 billion budget focuses on major infrastructure projects, education, health care and reducing poverty.

Health-care spending totals $4.8 billion, with the government citing the rising demand for health-care services and the costs related to the new agreement with the province’s physicians as reasons for increased spending. $75.3 million will go toward the recently announced new master agreement with doctors to improve the recruitment and retention of medical professionals.

The provincial government is also tackling wait times for family physicians with an additional $750,000 in funding, for a total of $28.4 million, to further develop collaborative care teams so that Nova Scotians have better access to physicians and other primary care providers. The budget also allocates $4.7 million to “continue developing the next generation of doctors” at Dalhousie University Medical School.

The government is making it easier for Nova Scotians to access the medications they need, with $20.9 million going toward new cancer drugs and utilization, seniors pharmacare, family pharmacare and low-income family drug support.

Funding for long-term care is increasing by $5.3 million for a total of $612.4 million. This new funding will help implement the findings of the Expert Panel on Long Term Care, as well as to increase support to clients with complex needs and convert under-utilized residential care facility beds to long-term care beds in Halifax.

The budget also includes funding for other important health-care initiatives, including $3.2 million to support the implementation of the Human Organ Tissue Donation Act which will see all Nova Scotians become potential organ donors unless they opt out, a $550,000 increase in mental health and addiction funding to expand and maintain mental health services and supports, a $16.6 million increase for programs that support adults and children with disabilities and $154.4 million to support infrastructure projects like the QEII New Generation Project and the Cape Breton Regional Municipal Redevelopment.

Additionally, the budget contains some measures for affordable housing, including an $18.7 million increase for the second year of initiatives to provide “safe, suitable and affordable housing” under the Nova Scotia Action Plan for Affordable Housing, part of the National Housing Strategy, as well as for other provincial housing priorities.

The opposition parties suggest that the budget is lacking, with the NDP saying that the budget’s proposed corporate tax cut was a $70 million tax gift to big corporations. For their part, the Progressive Conservatives argue that this spending was an effort to create the illusion that the government has solutions for the problems facing Nova Scotians. Nova Scotia PC leader Tim Houston said that, with the atrocious mental health wait times, the government’s investment in mental health and addiction, which amounts to 55 cents per person, is seriously lacking.

Learn more about Nova Scotia’s 2020 budget.