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Ahead of the provincial budget, associations and non-profits across Newfoundland and Labrador are looking for measures that ease burdens on businesses as well as address health-care struggles.<\/p>\n
The budget will be delivered at Confederation Building on Wednesday and it will be the first budget for the PCs since they were elected in October.<\/p>\n
“We are looking for strong, bold decision making,” said Labrador North Chamber of Commerce CEO Julianne Griffin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the province [has a] significant deficit but there are a lot of exciting things on the horizon. So we\u2019ll be looking for, you know, strong decisions and planning around recruitment and retention, energy reliability, in particular, for Labrador, housing and supports for small businesses.”<\/p>\n
She added the cost of living in Labrador is higher than other areas of the province, so she wants the budget to reflect that.<\/p>\n
In December, Finance Minister Craig Pardy said the province\u2019s deficit had skyrocketed to $948 million<\/a> \u2014 up from the last projection of $626 million given in August by the previous Liberal government.<\/p>\n Jonathan Galgay, director of legislative affairs with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), said they want to see a reduction in so-called \u201cred tape\u201d to make things easier for businesses to apply for permits and make applications.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re asking for a reintroduction of new legislation to make things easier,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the election, the PCs promised to drop the small business tax from 2.5 per cent to one per cent<\/a> if elected \u2014 which Griffin and Galgay are hoping to see implemented.<\/p>\n Galgay said another priority is to see the 15 per cent retail sales tax on insurance for businesses axed.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve engaged directly with the minister of finance and the premier to talk about these issues. So they made commitments. We have to thank them for doing that. But Wednesday is truly the day to see whether or not they’re going to follow through with that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Energy needs<\/p>\n The recently announced expansion of military base 5 Wing Goose Bay<\/a> and a proposed Gull Island hydroelectric project will result in an increased need for power in Labrador.<\/p>\n Griffin said energy reliability in Labrador<\/a> is something her association has been concerned about for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of the results of the independent review of the [Churchill Falls] MOU, we need strong planning, strategic planning and an energy plan for Labrador,\u201d said Griffin.<\/p>\n Without it, she said Labrador is at a risk of missing out on economic activity and revenue for the province.<\/p>\n Health-care hopes<\/p>\n Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses’ Union Newfoundland and Labrador, is looking for commitments to the province\u2019s health-care system, especially getting away from costly private travel nurses.<\/p>\n Coffey added the union has a travel team proposal into government that would create new positions in the province\u2019s health-care system, and anyone who wanted to work as a travel nurse would have to apply for the position.<\/p>\n The proposal, which Coffey said would be cheaper than relying on travel nurses, would see registered nurses and nurse practitioners travel throughout the province.<\/p>\n The union is also looking for support for nursing students, pointing out students on work terms have to pay their own way, including travel costs, accommodations and meals and courses.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think that’s wrong and we think that they should be getting supported financially,\u201d said Coffey.<\/p>\n Advocate Noreen Careen wants funding aimed at housing in Wednesday\u2019s budget, especially for the Labrador West Housing and Homelessness Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re waiting on a final response around finding to extend our emergency shelter. So we\u2019re very hopeful that that\u2019s something that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Download our free CBC News app<\/a> to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-634381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}