BATHURST — New Brunswick Finance Minister Rene Legacy says the government is trying to grow the economy and transform how it delivers services while dealing with record deficits. The provincial government closed the books on the 2025-26 fiscal year Friday with a $1.3-billion deficit, the largest in the province’s history. The shortfall is more than double the $549-million deficit Premier Susan Holt’s Liberal government had projected in its first budget tabled in March 2025. Legacy’s budget for the current 2026-27 year projected another record deficit of $1.39 billion, which was adjusted to $1.66 billion in a fiscal update last month. The minister said Friday that he knows the province’s finances are at a point where New Brunswickers are worried. “That’s why we’ve continually said since the beginning that we know we (have) to rightsize some of the services … we need to transform because it’s going to be very hard to maintain this level of spending,” the minister told reporters from Bathurst, N.B., during a virtual news conference Friday morning. New Brunswick’s most recent budget included a plan to cut the civil service by 12 per cent over three years, the sale of government properties and an effort to crack down on unreported lobster and contraband tobacco sales in order to recover millions of dollars in tax revenue. Every government in Atlantic Canada has burst its projected budget deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year. P.E.I.’s shortfall was projected at a record $183.9 million when it was first presented, but had grown to almost $450 million by the time the final accounting was completed. Nova Scotia’s deficit climbed from a projected $697.5 million at budget time to $1.2 billion, while Newfoundland and Labrador’s deficit rose from $372 million to $948 million in its latest fiscal update In December. New Brunswick’s revenues for 2025-26 were almost $217 million less than expected, due to lower revenues from harmonized sales taxes as well as lower revenues from corporate and personal income taxes. Meanwhile, expenses were almost $538 million more than expected, largely because of extra spending on health and social services. New Brunswick closed the fiscal year with a net debt of $13.9 billion, up from $12.2 billion the previous year. Legacy said the province’s net debt to GDP ratio is still one of the lowest in the country at 27.8 per cent, which is down significantly from 41.2 per cent a decade ago. “We don’t have those big economies that they have out west, so that’s still very healthy, but we need to adjust,” said Legacy. New Brunswick is pursuing a number of major economic development projects including new nuclear energy development, a major data centre, and an expansion to the Port of Belledune. There’s also the $580-million tungsten and molybdenum mine near Sisson Brook, N.B., which Ottawa has placed on its list of fast-tracked major national projects. The government is also considering whether it should drop its 2014 ban on fracking gas reserves. Legacy said the challenge is that economic projects the province supports now don’t immediately translate into government revenue. “We can invest today in 600 megawatts of wind,” he said. “We’re paying for the cost right now, but the benefits are only going to come in two, three years when we start generating energy and getting revenue from it.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2026. -- By Devin Stevens in Halifax.
