ABEL LEBLANC IS TRULY A MAN FOR THE POOR PEOPLE!! THE GREAT LOU MURPHY WOULD BE PROUD OF ABEL!!!!

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Liberal MLA calls broken rebate promise 'embarrassment'

Last Updated: Friday, December 22, 2006 | 12:05 PM AT
CBC News

A Liberal MLA from Saint John is taking shots at his own government for abandoning a key election promise to provide New Brunswickers with a home heating tax rebate.

Saint John Lancaster MLA Abel LeBlanc called the cancellation of the $45-million program an "embarrassment," and said although he accepts the province's financial situation may be worse than the government had believed prior to the Sept. 18 election, he doesn't agree with breaking campaign promises.

"I think it's an embarrassment," he said Thursday. "You run on a ticket and that was the platform."

LeBlanc, who won his riding with nearly 60 per cent of the popular vote, said he's received a handful of phone calls and e-mails from angry constituents about the cancelled rebate. He says he responded by toeing the party line, and explained that the government can't afford the rebate.

Publicly, however, LeBlanc says the Liberals should have tried harder to keep their word. "Did I have any input into it — no I didn't have any input into it. It was a cabinet decision. Do I have to live with the cabinet decision? Yes I do," he said. "I don't think it's very good."

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Victor Boudreau released the results of an independent review of the government's books. The accounting firm Grant Thornton reviewed the government's finances, forecasting huge deficits worth hundreds of millions of dollars within the next several years unless the government makes serious spending cuts.
In response, Boudreau cancelled the long-promised tax rebate program, saying the province can't afford it. The former Tory government had pledged to refund the provincial sales tax portion of all heating bills starting in July 2006. Instead, the Liberals have offered a one-time $100 payment to households earning an income of less than $25,000.

Prior to the financial review, Liberal Premier Shawn Graham made several spending announcements, including investments in nursing homes and home-care services, and cuts to provincial gasoline taxes.

LeBlanc says his government should have waited until after the review to spend money on any campaign promises — allowing it to consider all of them — instead of cancelling a rebate that would help nearly every New Brunswick resident.

"I think the audit played a very important part in this. When you're affecting, well, I'd say 99 per cent of the people in the province on this HST [rebate], I think the audit, we might have been able to make more room rather than some of the decisions that we did promise that we did fulfil right after the