Nova Scotia's New Democrats are accusing the ruling Tories of raiding a federal fund earmarked for day care to pay for enhancements to the provincial drug program.

The program announced Wednesday will allow some low-income families to pay just $5 for a child's prescription. It's expected to cost $1 million this year and $2 million next year.

NDP MLA Trevor Zinck supports the initiative, but said he doesn't want child-care money used when parents are desperate to find day-care spots.

"This government is again taking from one pot to fill up another," he said.

Zinck cites a government document obtained by the NDP that says the new drug program is affordable partly because of a "reallocation of certain child-care expenditures from federal monies."

Premier Rodney MacDonald says that's not the point.

"I don't want this good-news story to get lost on the issue of where in the government's budget it comes from,"  MacDonald said.

"The 35,000 young people that are going to be impacted, they don't care where it comes from and quite frankly I think that what's most important is that this program is in place and who it's getting to."

A government officials later said the briefing note simply got it wrong and that no federal money is being used to fund the new program.