Nova Scotia expected to table budget today with focus on health care – again

Nova Scotia's Progressive Conservatives will table the second budget of their mandate today, and the focus is expected once again to be on health care.

Ever since Premier Tim Houston's party was elected to govern in August 2021, the government has made its central mission repairing a health-care system beset by long wait-lists and an ever-growing list of people without a doctor.

Houston has been on a health-care spending spree in recent weeks.

He committed $59 million to set up a medical school at Cape Breton University; $37 million on a health institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.; and $25 million on developing health-care analytics programs at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

That money was in addition to funds set aside in last year's budget, which pumped an additional $413 million into an ailing system that was expected to consume $5.7 billion in spending -- about 43 per cent of government spending.

Finance Minister Allan MacMaster is expected to release the budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year around 1:15 p.m.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2023.