Chris Noseworthy said the two per cent escalation the province brought in through Budget 2015 will “hit people in their pockets,” and the business community will suffer as a result.
“It will really put a damper on discretionary income, and there are a few other things in the budget that will hurt discretionary spending,” he said.
A number of increased fees and things liked cancelled energy rebates are examples, he said.
Noseworthy is concerned the federal government could in turn look to raise its portion of the harmonized sales tax.
The president said he had to “dig,” but he did find some positives within the budget for the business community. Noseworthy said it was good to see more of an alignment between the labour market and the College of the North Atlantic.
“In some cases, we were sort of subsidizing the Alberta labour market,” he said. “That needs to stop.”
He was happy to see continued support for venture capital funding, an increased tourism marketing budget, a new interactive digital media tax credit and support for regional clusters in an attempt to diversify the economy.
“Aside from that, it is a worrisome budget,” he said.
Noseworthy said it is sad to see the province come through its most profitable period and slip back to being described as cash-strapped.
“Did we make the best choices over the past 10 years?” he asked. “Did we spend our money properly? Right now, this budget says we didn’t.”
Disappointed, but not surprised
Bob Byrnes said he was disappointed, but not surprised about Thursday’s budget, set out by a government he said has wasted taxpayers’ dollars for years.
The president of the Bay St. George Chamber of Commerce said the only positive he saw in the budget is that he’s now 100 per cent certain this government will be gone in the next election.
Byrnes said the HST increase back to 15 per cent in January will have an impact on retail trade. The last time the tax was at that rate, he said customers and tourists complained about how high it was.
“This is a regressive tax, because now people who can afford it will wait to go out of the province and buy up things while on vacation and more people will be shopping online,” Byrnes said, adding people who can’t afford to go away and shop will be forced to purchase less.
Byrnes singled out former premier Tom Marshall as an example of politicians who overspent and ran the province into debt.
He said if someone in the retail sector was doing this kind of indiscriminate spending, they’d be taken to task. He said businesspeople spend money only as they can afford to spend it, and put some aside for the leaner times.
“There should be a book out there entitled ‘Running a government for Dummies’ for these people,” he said.
The privatization of health care beds is something else the chamber president finds bothersome.
“You’re not going to have the same level of care and attention by someone that’s getting paid about $11 an hour compared to the current union wages of about $25.”
