Budget Highlights Only One Project for Six Rivers

A "hospital" for Pugwash is not on the list.

The 2017–2018 budget, tabled today in the Nova Scotia Legislature, is an aggressive and all encompassing document designed to offer something for everybody. The big question is whether it is a real budget, one that will be inspected, parsed, debated, and approved by the House of Assembly.

Many speculate the House will not be given a chance to review it. Instead, they think the Premier will pull the plug and call an election, perhaps this weekend.

While many budget items will affect people across the province, including a tax reduction for about 500 thousand individual tax payers and small businesses, the province went to great effort to itemize localized benefits by region.

A review of the list covering Northern Nova Scotia, an area that covers Cumberland, Colchester Pictou, and Antigonish counties, reveals only one project in the Six Rivers Region, and even that may raise some eyebrows.

While the government was quick to list hospital projects elsewhere, the long awaited new hospital for Pugwash did not make the list. Instead, the government announcement referred to "funding for the North Cumberland Health Centre project."

Premier Stephen McNeil was in Pugwash a few weeks ago to announce funding for the final study and design phase for a new hospital. With carefully chosen words, he left the impression the community would have a "new hospital." Some, at that time, realized his announcement was for a study, but everyone hoped it would lead to construction of a new hospital. Today's announcement calls it a "health centre project" which leaves some scratching their heads.

The provincial opposition leaders will keep tabs on the Premier over the weekend, as they think the budget will die a quick death on the order paper in favour of an election campaign.

If they are correct, the announcements and planned expenditures go up in smoke, though they will make a great set of election promises.