Once a crusader for transparent election promise costing, Higgs now short on financing details

Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs is defending his party's failure to provide cost estimates on some of its big money election promises so far, despite his own long personal campaign to make the practice mandatory.

"What I've seen from the past is that people can make up a lot of numbers and put it in there," said Higgs, who claims he would be "making up stuff, which I won't do," to put price tags on many of his current proposals.

"I don't have genuine numbers. I don't have access to the numbers," he said.  

Tories have unveiled at least two multimillion-dollar items so far in their campaign, including pay increases for several thousand home-care workers and tax cuts for owners of apartment buildings, although voters have been given no information on the expected cost of either.

Higgs claimed there is a limited ability of parties to obtain good financial information to make credible estimates.  

He also said he plans to divert money within government to pay for commitments he makes rather than spend new money and argues that means there will be no net impact on the province's finances.

If savings cannot be found, he said proposed changes may have to wait.

"Our goal is no new taxes and we're going to live within spending we currently have in the province," said Higgs.  

"We're going to it with the framework of the money we have available to us."

Still, the decision not to provide full cost estimates of election promises, from the man who originally demanded it from others, is unexpected.

Fighting for cost clarity since 2012

Higgs began advocating for a mandatory requirement that political parties cost all of their election promises as early as 2012 when he was the province's minister of finance. He told a public meeting in Saint John that year commitments made during elections were the major cause of many of the province's financial problems.

"If I had to say what's the biggest problem with the system and why are we digging deeper and deeper into holes it has to do with the election process," said Higgs.

"The election process could have teeth if we had a situation where promises had to be costed out."

Higgs eventually sponsored legislation that forced parties to tally their promise costs in the 2014 election. Although the Liberals later repealed and replaced the law, their own version also requires election promises to be costed.  

Nevertheless, the PC Party has provided little of that information.

One of the first promises made by Higgs early in the election campaign was to enhance services to seniors, including a commitment to "pay home-care workers a fair wage."

The party does not specifically say what a fair wage would be, but Higgs has suggested it will likely be several dollars an hour above current rates, implemented over a number of years to help retain workers and make the job more attractive as a career.

When Higgs was finance minister in 2014, his department released figures showing each $1 per hour increase in the wages of home-care workers would cost the province $6.3 million. That would put the cost of the party's proposal in the $20 million to $40 million per year range — or higher — depending on the wage increase the party eventually settles on.

However, on its financial disclosure form the PC Party has opted to list no cost, claiming it has "insufficient information" to prepare an estimate.

Same issue on upcoming announcement

Similarly, a multimillion-dollar promise the party will make soon on eliminating provincial property tax on apartment buildings — but for which it has already filed a financial disclosure form with Elections NB — also claims "insufficient information" to prepare a cost estimate.

"The scheduled phase out of the tax will be contingent upon the larger state of the province's finances and thus a precise annual costing cannot be produced," says the party's disclosure form.

Higgs said he does not know exactly how much property tax apartment owners pay the province and will only make good on the commitment if the province can afford it and a review of other jurisdictions proves to him that tax rates on apartment buildings in New Brunswick are as uncompetitive as owners claim.

He said those are issues he can only sort out if he wins the election, takes office and has access to all of the government's information.

"I don't know what the exact number for this (apartment tax) is and I have no way of finding that out," said Higgs.

"If I can't give that accuracy the only commitment I can make is I'm not going to subject people to pay for something that is unreasonable or unworkable."

After a week of campaigning, the PC party has officially provided a cost estimate for only one commitment — its plan to increase funding for the office of the Auditor General by $1 million.

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant expressed frustration at a press conference Thursday with the lack of financial disclosure PCs have made so far.

"They don't want to give any costing to anybody," said Gallant.  

"They're going to try and pretend there's no cost to their platform when of course there is."