{"id":61212,"date":"2025-12-19T20:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=61212"},"modified":"2025-12-19T20:47:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:47:21","slug":"n-s-predicting-1-29b-deficit-in-2025-26-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=61212","title":{"rendered":"N.S. predicting $1.29B deficit in 2025-26 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"alignnormal\">[metaslider id=&#8221;56509&#8243;]<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HALIFAX:<\/strong> Nova Scotia released its second update on Budget 2025-26: Unlocking Our Potential on Dec. 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The province is projecting a deficit of $1.29 billion before contingency, up $64.6 million from the September forecast update.<br><br>\u201cOur Province continues to work hard to grow our economy and create more opportunities for Nova Scotians,\u201d said John Lohr, Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur deficit comes from investing in healthcare and cutting taxes to make life more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"alignnormal\">[metaslider id=&#8221;56526&#8243;]<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"alignnormal\">[metaslider id=&#8221;56501&#8243;]<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2025, the government<br>&#8211; cut the Need a Family Practice Registry waitlist from 110,000 people in January to 68,490 as of December 1<br>&#8211; surpassed targets for healthcare enrolment, with about 1,900 first-year students starting healthcare programs at six universities this fall<br>&#8211; cut the HST by one per cent and reduced income and small business taxes, a $500 million investment that will save the average family over $1,000 a year<br>&#8211; paved the way for new housing, achieving 167 per cent of the 2028 goal- expanded the school lunch program, which offers a pay-as-you-can model in 334 schools across the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"alignnormal\">[metaslider id=&#8221;56179&#8243;]<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>To cover the costs of fighting wildfires and drought in the summer of 2025, the Province drew $24.9 million from the $200-million contingency established in Budget 2025-26.<br><br><strong>Quick Facts:<\/strong><br>&#8211; additional appropriations of nearly $268 million were required for 10 departments, bringing the totalfor 2025-26 to $1.33 billion to date<br>&#8211; the Province provides forecast updates to the public every September, December and as a final forecast with the following year\u2019s budget; the final report on the budget is presented through public accounts the following summer<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"alignnormal\">[metaslider id=&#8221;56530&#8243;]<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HALIFAX: Nova Scotia released its second update on Budget 2025-26: Unlocking Our Potential on Dec. 18. The province is projecting a deficit of $1.29 billion before contingency, up $64.6 million from the September forecast update. \u201cOur Province continues to work hard to grow our economy and create more opportunities for Nova Scotians,\u201d said John Lohr, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,957],"tags":[9960,1285,2732,48,1077],"class_list":["post-61212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-budget-2025-2026","tag-deficit","tag-john-lohr","tag-n-s","tag-nova-scotia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}