Expensive promises for N.B.'s October election are piling up. But will they be honoured?
Long history of parties sidestepping commitments after winning won't happen this year, they insist.
A history in New Brunswick of expensive campaign promises not being honoured once an election is finished will not be repeated this year, provincial political parties are insisting.
Heidi Cyr, a senior communications adviser and press secretary to Blaine Higgs, said voters can count on the premier to honour a $450-million commitment he made last month to lower the provincial sales tax rate by two percentage points over two years if he is re-elected in October.
"New Brunswickers can trust that thanks to strong fiscal management, including paying down our debt, we are now able to phase-in a 2% cut to the HST," said Cyr in an email about the promise.
"New Brunswickers will be able to see this tax cut roll out on a clear schedule."
It is a firm commitment from Progressive Conservatives, but New Brunswick political parties have a long history of sidestepping expensive and what appeared to be equally firm commitments made to voters during previous elections.
Higgs himself entered public life in 2010 and one of his first tasks after being appointed finance minister by then premier David Alward was to wriggle out of a pricey election property tax promise Alward had made to seniors weeks earlier.
Higgs said the promise, which involved permanently freezing the assessed value of houses belonging to anyone over the age of 65 for as long as they owned and lived in their home, was a poor idea and too expensive.
Instead, Higgs concocted a much cheaper scheme where seniors could defer paying tax increases until they died or moved.
Legislation was passed to allow the province to place liens on participating seniors' homes so it could collect unpaid taxes, plus interest, later.
The substitute plan was not well received, and only a fraction of eligible seniors have ever signed on to it.
"The property tax commitment in the platform, I realize that what we did, did not meet the expectations of what people thought they were going to get," Higgs explained at a public meeting in 2011 about why the promise was not honoured as written.
"In 10 years time, it would have cost the province $173 million."
During his own period as party leader, Higgs has also made the decision to walk away from expensive campaign promises.
In the 2018 election under Higgs, PCs made a commitment to "eliminate" provincial property taxes on apartment buildings as government finances improved.
The party promoted the idea as a benefit to tenants and although government finances did improve dramatically, provincial property taxes on apartment buildings remain.
This year, the provincial government is still collecting, in most cases, between $350 and $600 in property tax per apartment unit in New Brunswick for itself on top of what local governments charge.
On some buildings that represents no tax reduction at all.
A request to interview a government representative about what happened to the property tax promise was not granted, but in her email, Cyr blamed the failure on the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to "re-prioritize the use of all fiscal resources."
New Brunswick did cut tax rates on apartment buildings by half in 2023 but rapidly rising property assessment valuations on the same properties at the same time offset much of those changes.
Despite the size of the commitment to eliminate all provincial property taxes on apartment buildings, which PCs estimated to be worth $90 million in 2018, Higgs has rarely mentioned it.
In July in Moncton as he announced his new promise to cut the HST, Higgs appeared to suggest he had not made any unfunded election commitments in 2018, let alone ones he didn't keep.
"Consistently we have seen governments announce tax cuts or announce spending programs before they could actually afford them," said Higgs.
"I didn't do that in 2018."
In an interview, New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt said that history will "absolutely" undermine Higgs's credibility with voters on whether he can be trusted to honour a significant promise this year like cutting the HST.
"They remember well that this premier promised to eliminate those taxes on rentals, the double tax, and then did not deliver on that promise," said Holt.
"So there's a lot of skepticism that the premier's HST promise is for election purposes and that they won't follow through on the whole thing."
Liberals are proposing their own sales tax cut this year. They have a $100-million plan to drop the provincial portion of the HST on residential electricity prices but have their own history of not honouring all election commitments.
In the 2006 election, Liberals made a similar promise to the public to rebate the HST on home heating costs, but after winning the election quickly reneged.
"We will not be moving forward with the previously announced rebate," said new Liberal finance minister, Victor Boudreau, in December 2006, just two months after his party took office.
Like Progressive Conservatives, Holt says whatever has happened in the past there will be no flip-flopping on election promises after the election this year.
"If we put something in a platform and we promise to New Brunswickers that we will do it, then we have to do it," said Holt.
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