Opposition leader Blaine Higgs is trying to find out why the Service New Brunswick budget was increased and why the provincial government is being secretive about it.
“$922,000 is such a specific dollar figure that clearly someone can account for this money without much effort. It stands to reason that the premier knows what this money was for but he won’t tell the people of New Brunswick,” says Higgs.
Though, judging by the Service NB memo, Higgs believes the extra money was used to fast track the now tainted system to determine property tax assessments.
Higgs says the request for reassessments now is unprecedented. Over 15,000 requests to have assessments reviewed have been received from property owners in the province. To date about 3300 errors have been identified.
Premier Brian Gallant has argued that mistakes with property tax assessments date back to the time when Higgs was finance minister.
“There were errors every single year to this magnitude since 2011,” says Gallant. “There were thousands of errors every single year, the error rate was extremely — much higher — when he was in government.”
In a table-turning move, the provincial Liberals have tabled a motion in the Legislature which asks Higgs to explain his role in securing the special tax break given by Common Council back in 2005 to Canaport LNG.
The Liberals say Higgs was employed by Irving Oil at the time and was a member of the negotiating team on the LNG project as well as serving on the Board of Directors for Canaport LNG.
That tax deal, which was repealed by the Gallant LIberals, limited the property tax to half a million dollars compared to $2.6-million this year.
