Now that the province has reversed some of their initial budget cuts, they have a chance to fix other structural problems in the government, according to a political scientist.
That problem is what Tom Urbaniak calls “centralized scarcity,” meaning the political decisions come from the premier’s office.
He says the time in the legislature is extremely limited, with the fall sessions lasting just over a week, so the government can push out their bills as fast as possible before people can “really dig into them.”
“The centre of gravity is the premier’s office. Decisions are being made quite arbitrarily about what to cut and what not to cut, and there isn’t a lot of debate in any democratic forum or in the province at large, simply because there isn’t time or opportunity for that debate to happen,” says Urbaniak, a professor of political science at Cape Breton University.
On Tuesday, the province walked back some of the changes proposed in the budget after massive province-wide rallies calling for the government to maintain funding to several sectors.
Now, the government will bring back $53 million worth of grants and programs that they planned to cut, which will go to African Nova Scotian and Indigenous students, as well as programs for seniors and disability supports.
However, they did not reinstate the cuts to the arts, culture and tourism sector.
Premier Tim Houston says they got some things wrong.
“For that, I’m sorry,” the Premier told reporters during a news conference on Tuesday.
“I never want Nova Scotians to feel that the government is working against them. We did not do enough ahead of time to explain the seriousness of the challenges we’re facing. We moved too quickly.”
No analysis done, professors say
Talan Iscan, an economics professor at Dalhousie University, agrees that it does not look like the government did any kind of economic analysis in the budget.
Both Iscan and Urbaniak say they believe the ministers sometimes were not aware of what cuts were made or why.
And now, with the province reversing some of the slashed spending, he has more questions.
“How come they can make these decisions without any consultation, without any clear thinking and without any explanation to the public and then respond to public pressure?” says Iscan.
Restoring funding for some of our most vulnerable people, he says, including people with disabilities and seniors, is significant.
But he says people have bigger questions about the environment, arts and culture, and scholarships that have been taken away from students, some of whom he knows.
To fix this, the government needs to be better connected to the communities and people affected by these decisions, he says.
Need more than a Band-Aid solution
Urbaniak says the budget needs more than a Band-Aid solution or amendments. To “give some constructive advice,” he says the government should take several weeks to totally redo it and get input from all sorts of perspectives.
“I hope that the Premier’s manifestation of regret and humility today, which is welcomed with respect to the programs that he has addressed, will actually lead to a bigger discussion of how we do politics in this province and how we develop policy in this province,” says Urbaniak.
“Let’s deal with this in a more mature, more methodical manner.”
