Governments are often defined by the decisions they make in the first weeks and months of their administration.

In the first weeks of the Graham administration, the Provincial Government announced new spending programs that responded to its election promises. Good first step.

Next, the Government revealed the results of a government spending analysis that suggested that a ‘business as usual’ budget would result in a $300 to $400 million deficit. Critics immediately declared that such informal audits were standard fare for new governments and meant nothing in respect to the true financial circumstance of the Province.

The former Premier and his former Minister of Finance scoffed at the notion of deficit and assured everyone they had left the Province with a surplus.

The new Minister of Finance disagreed with them and introduced his first Budget in response to the Grant Thornton deficit-warning. Personal and corporate income taxes were increased. Price increases for beer, wine and liquor were signaled when the Minister instructed the New Brunswick Liquor Commission to deliver a $13 million profit.

The Minister of Energy stoked the fire with his declaration that NB Power must pay its way.

Nothing wrong with that, in principle but combined with tax increases, rising gasoline prices and price increases at the liquor store, red flags went up (no pun intended).

All this was happening as an election was going on in the province of Quebec and the Federal Government was delivering its own budget. The federal budget increased transfer payments to Quebec by 30% while restricting New Brunswick to less than a 2% increase. The boost to Quebec allowed the Government of Jean Charest to deliver a $700 million tax-cut to voters in Quebec.

Meanwhile, back in New Brunswick, people were getting antsy about their property taxes as assessments were driving them upwards. Earlier this week, a couple of readers (plural) told me that their 2007 property-tax assessment increased astronomically in just one year.

“Our principal residence assessment went up $150,000, a 76% increase, resulting in a $1,400 boost in our tax bill this year” they said. They went on to say they have not even finished construction of their home which is situated on an erosion plagued waterfront lot (approximately 75ft x 100ft) that has been in their family for 90 years.

They corrected me for having said in an earlier column that “property taxes collected by the Provincial Government were limited to rental properties and second homes (cottages/summer homes).

Apparently, I was wrong. In Local Service Districts, property, taxes are paid to the Provincial Government. According to these folks, only $25 per $100,000 of assessment is returned to the local community. That doesn’t seem fair to me unless the provincial government provides some form of municipal-type service in these communities.

I am not in a position to comment on the merits of individual cases but I do know that people are very upset with the Provincial Government on the matter of property assessments that in turn are leading to exorbitant increases in property taxes. It’s the talk of coffee-shops and water-coolers. Bloated assessments do not have to translate into higher property taxes.

In fact, property tax-rates should drop when assessments rise, at least to a point consistent with inflation.

All of the above leads me to the unfortunate statement “we can afford it”-Victor Boudreau. Can we indeed?

I know Victor Boudreau to be a fine and honorable man. I admire his integrity, his good intentions and his devotion to family. I wonder about the communications advice he has received when I hear statements like “we can afford it”.

Yes some can afford it but for many people, the combination of provincial income tax-increases, beer/liquor price-increases, property-tax increases, rising gasoline prices and pending power-rate increases may prove to be more than they can handle.

On another but related matter, La Caisse Populaire Acadienne Ltée., New Brunswick announced recently that it would take the La Caisse Populaire de Shippagan back into its fold if the provincial government would guarantee its (Shippagan’s) liabilities.

The Shippagan credit union was a problem that had danced with the former Conservative government for the last year or two. The Liberal Government announced a $60 million bail-out package to permit the move. The alternative was an $87 million dollar collapse that would have triggered a 100% call on government guarantees and created a ripple effect throughout the credit union community.

Legislation passed by the Lord government had provided for the 100% guarantee. This compares to bank limits of $100,000 per account.

The water muddies with suggestions of impropriety in Shippagan – 35,000 credit union members in a town of 5,000 people – deposits far in excess of local assets. It gets even muddier when the Leader of the Opposition Conservatives who was the former Minister of Finance threatens this past Thursday to release information that will be damaging to the entire credit union movement and then suggests that if he goes down, he’s taking other people with him.

What is this man hiding?

There is a lot of definition on the provincial table. The time may have come for a judicial inquiry into the La Caisse Populaire de Shippagan and what Mr. Volpe knows or doesn’t know about its operations.

It certainly is time to put a cap on property tax increases (regardless of assessed values) at a rate near inflation.

On the matter of NB Power, may I suggest that rate increases be limited proportionately to increases in the direct cost of fuel and increases in the direct cost of energy replacement (the cost of purchasing electricity outside the province)?

If governments are defined by the decisions they make, this government has a great opportunity to frame such definition with the decisions it makes in the next few days or weeks.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com