Fiscal Issues

MOODY’S AND FINANCE: WAITING FOR A MIRACLE

First, let’s clear up any confusion. The downgrade in the Province’s credit rating by Moody’s, a credit rating agency, resulted not from a “highly ambitious” deficit plan,...

FINANCE DEPARTMENT LEFT OUT OF MUSKRAT RISK ASSESSMENTS

Guest Post by David Vardy Department of Finance Bypassed Former Finance Minister Cathy Bennett told the Muskrat Falls Inquiry this week that upon her appointment to the Finance portfolio in...

THE BUDGET: TRYING TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Tom Osborne delivered the Province’s seventh deficit Budget in a row. Only the Atlantic Accord arrangement, amounting to $2.5 billion, salvaged any...

FINANCE MINISTER SHOULD LET EVERYONE SHARE IN THE GOOD NEWS

VOCM, in a year-end news story, quotes Finance Minister Tom Osborne saying that “the province has made some significant progress in the last three years in...

TOM OSBORNE NEEDS A FISCAL AXE AND THE COURAGE TO USE IT

In March of this year the Finance Minister, Tom Osborne, delivered the seventh in a successive string of deficit budgets, their genesis originating in both Tory...

EXPERT PANEL NEEDED NOW TO EXAMINE NL’S FINANCIAL MESS

Noticeably more people, including readers of this Blog, want to see public discussion of a resolution to the financial mess created by Muskrat. While their numbers...

MOODY’S DOUBTS OSBORNE ABLE TO ACHIEVE BUDGET BALANCE

Monday’s Blog Post forecasting a ‘status quo’ Budget didn’t exactly require going out on a limb. The Government had long ago made clear that they don’t...

OSBORNE’S BUDGET BAKED LONG BEFORE TUESDAY

If prudence was ever a word in Tom Osborne’s lexicon it was likely extracted as a condition of accepting the Finance post. Profligacy, now known in...