The Nova Scotia budget was tabled April 3rd, 2012.
Budget documents
Main Nova Scotia budget website with links to all budget documents.
Budget address (pdf)
Budget highlights (pdf)
"Nova Scotia's Kids and Learning First Plan will help every student succeed. Budget 2012 provides the first year of multi-year funding to put kids and learning first.
• Funding per student will increase to $10,457, the highest it has ever been.
• Class sizes will remain at their current 20-year low."
Responses and related readings
Nova Scotia Alternative Budget 2012: Forward to fairness [see pg. 43 for Early Learning and Child Care section]
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 22 Mar 12
"NSAB Actions:
• Provide funding to begin the phase-in of an ELCC plan: $45 million for 2012-13.
• Under a planned investment approach, incremental increases are to follow in subsequent years as the ELCC Action Plan is implemented in stages. NSAB recognizes that some of the subsequent investments will be offset by a planned transition to end existing public subsidies to for-profit operators and re-investing these resources in the developing system.
• The NSAB also recognizes that there is an urgent need for dedicated federal funding for early learning and childcare to assist the province to implement this plan.
• The NSAB also realizes that public investments must be spent wisely to ensure that they advance the principles outlined above. The NSAB commits to using a tool such as the Child Care System Implementation Model, will assist in this process.Total new spending in early learning and child care: $45 million."
Media articles
HST cut in Nova Scotia: Detracting from real debate about our future
Christine Saulnier's blog, rabble.ca, 6 Apr 12
"Since this government came into office in 2009, its mantra has been that the government of Nova Scotia needs to "live within its means." But this focus has detracted from the bigger questions we should focus on during budget time and all throughout a government's mandate: what does and what should government do for Nova Scotians and how will it pay for what it needs to do? What is its vision?.... And whether we are talking about health care, education, housing, child care or social assistance, it isn't as if we have fewer problems and thus need less spending. On the contrary, our health profile is worse than the rest of the country. We have no Early Learning and Child Care strategy to speak of."