HALIFAX -- The leaders of the NDP and the Liberals focused their election campaigns on young voters Tuesday in Nova Scotia, with Darrell Dexter trumpeting a tax credit his government gave to small business as a job creator and Stephen McNeil promising to remove interest on student loans from the province.
McNeil said his Liberal party thinks it is wrong to charge students interest on loans to further their post-secondary education, so he wants to eliminate interest at a cost of about $2.5 million a year to the government.
McNeil, who made his announcement at a coffee shop near the campus of Dalhousie University in Halifax, said the average student in Nova Scotia graduates with more than $30,000 in loans.
"A new Liberal government will help alleviate part of that burden," he said.
"This is a matter of principle and a fundamental belief that it is wrong to give large corporation handouts, such as the NDP have done for the past four years, but yet charge interest on student loans for our best and brightest young adults."
Dexter toured Ad-Dispatch, a small software development company in Halifax, to highlight the NDP's decision to make the digital media tax credit more accessible. He said the tax credit is providing jobs to young people and helping Nova Scotia develop a digital technology industry.
"It means that they are able to stay here, that they are able to build their lives here, have their families here," said Dexter, as a dozen or so young employees worked on their computers in the sleek white office.
"We say that you have to invest in these (companies)," Dexter continued. "There is competition taking place in every jurisdiction in North America for exactly this kind of innovative work."
The refundable tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of 2014, is for the development costs of so-called interactive digital media products.
Dexter said an NDP government would maintain the tax credit, but he would not say how long the extension would be.
Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie lamented the shrinking population among working-aged people during a campaign stop at the Halifax Metro Centre as he touted a plan to increase the province's population to one million people by 2025.
Attracting more immigrants to the province is key to its success, he said.
"A PC government will get a better deal with Ottawa to increase the number of immigrants coming to our province. Lower taxes, frozen power rates will keep them here."
Baillie's plan would mean attracting about 50,000 more people to Nova Scotia based on Statistic Canada's population estimate for the province in 2012.
Tuesday was the fourth day of the campaign in the countdown to the election on Oct. 8.
