Tories, Liberals talk business on first day of campaign
Support for small businesses in Nova Scotia was on the minds of the leaders of both the Progressive Conservative and the Liberal parties as they launched into the first full day of campaigning for the June 9 election Wednesday.
Tory leader Rodney MacDonald and Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil both focused their rhetoric on a controversial, cabinet-controlled economic development fund called the Industrial Expansion Fund.
MacDonald defended the fund during a campaign stop Wednesday morning at Ledwidge Lumber Mill in Enfield, N.S.
In February, the mill received a $1.2-million loan from the controversial fund.
The Liberal and New Democratic parties have called the Industrial Expansion Fund a political slush fund.
MacDonald, who called his party the most business friendly of all three parties in this election, said the fund would be at risk if voters elected a New Democrat or Liberal government because neither of them supports it.
"For every dollar invested, we see a $1.89 return to the people of Nova Scotia," MacDonald told CBC News on Wednesday. "That's a good investment. That's a smart investment," he said.
However, Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil, who was campaigning in Halifax on Wednesday, said his party would not eliminate the Industrial Expansion Fund. Instead, he said the party would drastically cut it in order to pay for two other programs that would also support small businesses.
McNeil promised to cut the small business tax rate from five per cent to one per cent. The Liberal leader said his party would also elaborate on Thursday on plans to extend micro-credits to mom-and-pop operations.
McNeil said his two ideas offered better ways to help foster small business rather than having a cabinet-controlled fund that he believed did not treat all businesses equally.
"There are businesses in parts of this community, in parts of this province, with two or three employees," McNeil said. "We want to engage them as well. We want to treat them the same way that we would be treating an employer with 200 people, and it would create sustainable employment in the long run."
McNeil said his new business loan and tax cut would cost the province approximately $30 million.
NDP Leader Darrell Dexter has said in the past that the Industrial Expansion Fund should be controlled by an agency at arm's length from government such as Nova Scotia Business Incorporated.