Jay Goldberg: Higgs’s missed opportunity in budget

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Budget 2024 was a major missed opportunity for New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs. Taxpayers learned on budget day that government revenue is up $1.1 billion over a year ago. For a province with a total budget of $12.2 billion in 2023, that’s a lot of dough.

Higgs could have seized the opportunity and used this fiscal room to deliver a sorely needed tax cut for New Brunswickers.

Instead, Higgs chose to increase government spending by a whopping nine per cent, more than double the rate of inflation.

What could Higgs have done instead?

Higgs could have cut the provincial portion of the HST from 10 per cent to eight per cent, which would have left $384 million in taxpayers’ pockets, for an average of $818 a household. With 50 per cent of Canadians saying they’re $200 away from not being able to pay their bills, and more than a million Canadians working two jobs just to stay afloat, $818 would make a real difference for families in Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John and everywhere in between.

With $1.1 billion of new revenue, Higgs could have cut the HST by two points and still have $700 million leftover to spend on targeted priorities, such as health care and education. That $700 million would have equated to a spending increase of 5.7 per cent.

That’s right: Higgs could have cut the HST and still increased spending big time.

Ask the average New Brunswick family whether they want to see an HST cut and a 5.7 per cent spending increase, or a nine per cent spending increase with no tax cut. Dollars to donuts taxpayers would have lined up behind option one.

Sadly, Higgs took that option off the table. Higgs has a strong pro-taxpayer record. He reduced the province’s debt load by $2 billion, which means debt interest payments are going down this year, a stark contrast with most other provinces.

He’s tabled a balanced budget every year since he became premier in 2018, something no other premier in Canada can claim.

And Higgs cut taxes in the past: the Higgs government introduced some income tax cuts in the fall of 2022 and delivered one-time affordability payments for New Brunswick families on multiple occasions.

But this year, the government failed to think big. There was room for serious tax relief. Instead of seizing the opportunity, Higgs took a pass.

It’s good to see the books balanced again. This year, too many Canadians have seen their governments post massive budget deficits. British Columbia and Quebec tabled deficits of $7.9 billion and $11 billion respectively. New Brunswickers should be grateful their province’s balance sheet is still going in the right direction.

But in an election year, when no doubt Higgs’s opponents will promise taxpayers the sun and the moon and the stars, he should have introduced a budget that left more money in taxpayers’ wallets.

Higgs will face voters in an election this October. While he failed to usher in a new era of lower taxes in New Brunswick in this budget, Higgs can still set out a low-tax vision for voters.

The premier is no doubt in the process of crafting his platform for the fall. Higgs should start with tax relief.

Taxpayers are tired of sending ever-increasing sums of money to Fredericton and Ottawa only to see politicians ramp up unsustainable spending. It’s time for taxpayers to be offered an option to keep more money in their wallets and send less money to bureaucrats in their ivory towers.

Higgs missed his chance to deliver on tax relief in the budget. But he still has a chance to do the right thing before facing voters this fall.

Jay Goldberg is the Interim Atlantic Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation