Budget lacks bold new solutions for the future, P.E.I. opposition parties say

P.E.I.'s opposition parties say Thursday's budget from the Progressive Conservative government lacks the vision and creativity needed to see the province through its current woes. 

Health care, housing and education were some of the big-ticket items in Finance Minister Jill Burridge's operating budget, which projected revenues of $3.15 billion and planned spending of $3.23 billion for 2024-25. 

Interim Liberal leader Hal Perry noted that the government's revenues when the PCs were first elected five years ago were $1 billion lower than what's being projected this year.

Despite that, he said, the Dennis King government hasn't made the necessary investments in this year's budget. 

"It doesn't correspond to the day-to-day challenges that Islanders are now experiencing. More should be done to help Islanders during this time of crisis," Perry said. 

"The government's solution is to spend more [and] throw money at some of the issues, but there's really no concrete plans to support that. What's needed from government is a vision and some bold new ideas to help Islanders amidst these crises that we're all challenged with." 

In many areas, money allocated but not spent in the current fiscal year is built into the budget for next year. Burridge said that shows the government's focus on carrying out existing projects — including its commitment to opening 30 patient medical homes across the province. 

Thursday's budget added another $10 million for those medical homes, but that money isn't delivering more than the 30 homes promised, and the deadline to have them all open has now been pushed back from December 2024 to the spring of 2025.   

Green Party finance critic Peter Bevan-Baker was glad to see a commitment to the medical homes continue, but he said the PCs need to spend more on health care overall to ensure the homes are viable. 

"In many jurisdictions there is an acknowledgement that [medical homes are] a way to provide modern primary health care to your people, so I'm very glad that that's there," he said.

"But if we don't have the staff to make them function as they need to, we're just moving people from one long list of 36,000 to 30 shorter lists of 1,000 each."

'It's not a money issue'

Bevan-Baker said an extra $6 million in the budget for doctor recruitment and retention won't fix a health-care problem that requires a change in the government's approach. 

"It's not a money issue. This is a governance issue, and we have a government that's falling in exactly the same footsteps as the previous government did, which is to take control from those who know what they're doing… and interfering and meddling where they don't know what they're doing," he said.