They're
cleaning up the mess that the last government made. Provincial Finance Minister
Blaine Higgs saying that's what the province is doing with the
highly-criticized budget in a post-budget speech he made in St. Stephen.
The St. Stephen and Area Chamber Of Commerce hosting "An Evening With Blaine Higgs" at the Trinity Hall last night (April 8th).
Higgs tells Tide News that the income-tax rollback of 2008 was supposed to be offset by a bump in HST, but that didn't happen.
He says
this has been the most difficult budget to date, and he tells us he
acknowledges this tax increase hits every pocketbook, but that we need
to get out of the hole that's been dug. The income-tax increase is a
measure that's expected to generate $136 million in revenue for 2013-14.
(In Picture, left to right, St. Stephen Chamber of Commerce President Dale Weeks, St. Stephen Mayor John Quartermain, Charlotte-Campobello MLA Curtis Malloch, and Finance Minister Blaine Higgs.)
The New
Brunswick Lung Association releasing the results of a survey which
indicates 69 per cent of people in the province support spending more
money to get people to quit smoking and 59 per cent support increasing
tobacco taxes to come up with the funding needed.
Lung
Association President and CEO Barb MacKinnon tells Tide News even though
tobacco taxes bring in 157 million dollars a year, illnesses caused by
smoking take quite a chunk out of the healthcare budget to the tune of
111 million dollars a year in direct costs and 429 million dollars in
social costs which include lost workdays.
She also points to research that shows for every dollar spent on smoking cessation, three dollars are save in healthcare costs.
The smoking rate in the province at 18.8 per cent is over 2 per cent higher than the national average.
According to the Lung Association, it usually takes from 5 to 7 attempts before someone can give up smoking.
