New numbers in from the provincial government are not encouraging on the financial front thanks to the pandemic.
Third quarter results for the 2020-21 fiscal year which ends next month show we are on track for a projected deficit of 12.7 million dollars – that’s compared to a budgeted surplus of 92.4 million dollars. our net debt is now expected to reach 13.9 billion dollars – an increase of 210 million dollars over budget forecasts.
Revenue is forecast to be almost 20 million dollars lower than budget mainly due to the pandemic brought on by decreased projections for provincial taxes – agency revenues – and sales of goods and services. Some of those decreases have been offset by federal funding programs.
Finance Minister Ernie Steeves says “with the emergence of new variants of the virus there remains a high degree of uncertainty in the outlook.”
The complete third quarter report can be found here.
