Tory leader defends decision to spend Crown share payments
Last Updated: Monday, May 25, 2009 | 7:01 PM ET
CBC News
The leader of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative party has come under fire for spending millions of dollars on operating expenses initially intended to pay down the provincial debt.
Tory Leader Rodney MacDonald personally took responsibility for a decision he made as premier to spend approximately $163 million of Crown share revenue on operating expenses instead of putting it towards the province’s debt.
“You know leadership is more than just saying soothing phrases or telling people what they want to hear,” MacDonald said Monday in explaining his decision.
MacDonald said he wanted to set the record straight and demonstrate he is able to lead the province through turbulent economic times.
“Our offshore revenue, including that of the Crown share, had to be used to protect the services, had to be used so that we wouldn't see tax increases,” MacDonald said.
In 2007, then-premier MacDonald and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached an agreement over a dispute regarding Crown share payments of offshore energy resources.
The dispute stemmed from a promise made by the federal government in the mid-1980s to pay compensation to Nova Scotia for ceding ownership of the offshore energy resources.
However, the federal government never delivered on its promise until MacDonald and Harper came to an agreement that would pay the province $860 million over a 15-year period.
MacDonald had said that 70 per cent of the Crown share payments would go towards paying down the provincial government’s debt.
That happened with the first payment but MacDonald made a decision to spend the next payment on operating costs after they lost a vote on a key government bill that would have allowed the MacDonald government to spend money that was earmarked to pay down the province's debt.
The failure of that vote caused the dissolution of government and kick-started the current election campaign.
The premier’s rivals in the provincial election campaign used the Crown share payment decision to question MacDonald's leadership.
New Democratic Party Leader Darrell Dexter said it has taken weeks for the Tory leader to personally own up to the decision.
"This is about transparency,” Dexter said Monday. “It's about telling people what it is you're actually doing and that's where the premier failed the test of leadership.”
Liberal leader Stephen McNeil said MacDonald’s admission two weeks before Nova Scotians go to the polls does not demonstrate good leadership.
“The premier should have been upfront with Nova Scotians when he was doing that and told them exactly what he was going to do,” McNeil said.
Nova Scotians head to the polls on June 9.
