By: John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.
Source: The Daily Gleaner
Premier Susan Holt has asked all departments to find savings of 10 to 15% in the lead-up to the 2026 budget in March. Photo: John Chilibeck, Brunswick News
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says she’s asked all government departments to find savings of 10 to 15% in time for the 2026 budget in the spring, an enormous undertaking.
This year’s provincial budget was $14.3 billion, so cutting 10% of that would be more than $1.4 billion.
Slashing 15% would top $2.1 billion.
“Given the current fiscal and economic environment, all departments have been asked to conduct a robust review of all potential efficiencies or cost savings of roughly 10 to 15 per cent as part of this year’s budget planning process,” Holt said on Friday in a prepared statement sent to Brunswick News.
“This is an exploratory exercise intended to help inform budget decisions and ensure public dollars are being used as effectively as possible. The objective is to manage pressures responsibly while continuing to prioritize investments in the services New Brunswickers rely on most.”
Holt was not made available for an interview, so it’s unclear how strict she will be in imposing the savings on different departments.
Since coming to office in October 2024, her Liberal government has been on a mission to improve health care, passing out $15,000 in bonuses to nurses and signing doctors to a four-year, $270-million deal.
It has also racked up the deficit, largely because of more spending, not a revenue shortfall.
At last count, the red ink was nearing $1 billion. It’s a far cry from the seven straight years of surpluses, largely under the previous Progressive Conservative regime of Blaine Higgs.
‘Hard choices’
Professor Tom Bateman. Photo: St. Thomas University
“This is the end of the honeymoon,” said Tom Bateman, a political scientist at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
“A political party campaigns on lots of largesse and lots of spending and lots of problem solving, and then they get in and realize it’s actually difficult. The money’s not there and hard choices have to be made.”
He said if the exercise goes well for the Holt Liberals, they’ll retrench and be able to come out of it without drastic cuts in the third and fourth year of their mandate, making it easier to be re-elected.
But Bateman warned there didn’t seem to be any big revenue windfall on the horizon that would bail out the provincial government. Holt and other ministers have talked about developing mines, but such projects typically take many years to get going and to start generating royalties and taxes.
He was betting Holt’s move could sell well politically.
“There is a sense that Liberals can cut more effectively than Conservatives,” he mused. “I’ve always thought Liberals can do it because they always have a tear in their eye, whereas when Conservatives do it, everyone thinks they have a smile on their face.”
‘Load of hooey’
New Brunswick’s opposition parties described Holt’s statement as two-faced.
“I think it’s a comms exercise. It’s a load of hooey,” said interim Progressive Conservative leader Glen Savoie, who runs the biggest opposition party in the House.
PC Opposition Leader Glen Savoie
“They promised they were going to balance the books and by the end of this fiscal year, they will have created a billion-dollar deficit,” he said.
“And now she’s trying to make New Brunswickers believe she’s going to cut departmental spending by 10 to 15% a smoke and mirrors attempt to make New Brunswickers believe she’s fiscally responsible?”
Savoie guessed that Holt might dial back the cuts to make people think she was saving jobs and could be “tagged as some kind of hero. I don’t buy any of it.”
The PC leader said no one would argue that a government can’t find certain efficiencies, but to suddenly decide to make major cutbacks after heavy spending in the first year was irresponsible.
“They’ve got nowhere else to go but cut bodies. This is completely self-inflicted, self-created and I’d like to know how they plan on sustaining this level of spending due to all the contracts they’ve already signed and promises already made.”
‘Blindly swinging an axe’
David Coon, leader of the small opposition Green party, called the premier’s statement “spin.”
“How could you possibly cut that much money from a department like health, a $250-million cut, when you need to invest more money to drive collaborative practices until everyone is attached to a primary health-care provider?”
Green Party Leader David Coon
The Liberal government fulfilled its promise by creating 11 collaborative care practices in different parts of the province this year, one more than expected.
The Liberals said it was part of a bold move to get everyone a family doctor or nurse practitioner, through team-based practices.
Next year, they plan to add at least 10 more. But Coon pointed out that the first 11 were easier – all of them were created in existing doctors’ offices or clinics. The next 10 will be more costly because they’ll need new spaces.
“We’ve done some math on this,” the leader said of his small Green team.
“The Liberals put $30 million in the budget this year for collaborative care clinics, and next year they’ll have spend about $54 million if they really want to achieve their targets.”
Coon argued that New Brunswick had to go into deficit because the needs are extreme in health care, education and housing.
He said he’d never been a fan of across-the-board, percentage cuts.
“It’s like blindly swinging an axe,” he said.
“In the process of restructuring departments – which should happen in a number of cases – you can find savings. You might say one department is top heavy, so you reduce the number of middle managers. But it has to be done strategically,” he added.
“I mean, cutting five or 10% is what the Tories would do. In some departments you can find savings, and in others you need to spend more.”
This story from Brunswick News was written by Local Journalism Initiative Reporter John Chilibeck.
