McNeil: End The Secrecy Around The Industrial Expansion Fund
(Halifax, NS) Liberal leader Stephen McNeil says the Dexter government's cabinet-controlled Industrial Expansion Fund must be made more transparent so Nova Scotians can have a level of comfort that their tax dollars are being invested properly.“Three months after receiving a $4.7 million dollar loan from Premier Dexter’s cabinet, a business lays off 35 employees - clearly, this company was in jeopardy well before the NDP decided to hand out taxpayers’ money,” says McNeil. “Nova Scotians need to know what led to this decision being made. What factors persuaded the NDP that this loan was in the best interest of the public?"
With tens and even hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars being distributed by those at the cabinet table, McNeil believes the business case for all previous NDP-approved loans should be shared with the public.
“Multi-million dollar taxpayer loans from the IEF must be made in an open and accountable fashion - in fact, the opposition NDP agreed with us on this point,” contends McNeil. “Secrecy was the problem with the IEF under previous Tory governments and it’s only getting worse under Premier Dexter.”
“Where are the business cases? Where is the data that assures Nova Scotians that these significant investments of their money were made wisely? We haven’t seen any.”
“We have a dozen men and women picking winners and losers in this province with no public accountability,” McNeil explains. “At the same time, the Auditor General has been denied hundreds of documents that he needed to properly audit the IEF. Apparently, the NDP believe that accountability is a concept that applies only to other governments and not this one.”
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