New Brunswick projects a $1.3 billion deficit

New Brunswick's population is growing and pushing down the size of the province's deficit. After the second quarter, Finance Minister Renée Legacy is projecting a $1.3 billion deficit. That's a $300 million dollar improvement over the previous quarter. The progress reflected in today's update is encouraging. But our work is far, far from done. When the budget was tabled in March, the province projected a $1.39 billion deficit. After the first quarter, that jumped to $1.7 billion. And now it's expected to be $1.31 billion by the end of the fiscal year. That turnaround is because of a $290 million jump in revenues, not fiscal belt tightening. Strong population growth helped push personal income taxes up by 63 million dollars and the province's share of corporate income taxes 103 million dollars higher. But Legacy says the government is still trying to find savings without cutting services. There is a lot of effort being done to to to bring the fiscal situation back in line to what we want it to be but there's also a clear message that we're not going to do it on the back of the Tory leader Danielle Léger was disappointed not to see additional measures to lessen the deficit. Government did not tighten their belts. Families tightened their belts. They paid more taxes. And you have to realize that this is still a record deficit for the whole of the Liberals. Green leader David Coon pointed to cost overruns in health and social development and says that speaks to the need for a comprehensive poverty reduction plan. What we're looking for as Greens is a plan, a plan that actually is designed to reduce the need for health care by bringing about a healthy population and a plan to reduce the need for social services by reducing poverty. Legacy says that cost reduction efforts have found $95 million spread across this and future years, and the government has eliminated over 200 positions through attrition for another $18 million in ongoing savings. But he acknowledges that those measures aren't sufficient to rein in a deficit of this size.