The PEI 2023 Budget Address was Delivered by The Honourable Jill Burridge Minister of Finance and Chair of Treasury Board At the First Session of the Sixty-seventh General Assembly of the Prince Edward Island Legislature on May 25th, 2023.

Below are excerpts from the address:

“It will not surprise anyone in this chamber that the budget I present today has three key areas of focus: healthcare, housing, and affordability. But, Madam Speaker, we know that investments in other areas are also important. Whether it is our education system, the environment, growing our workforce, embracing a growing economy, investing in our seniors, investing in young Islanders, or caring for our most vulnerable. The investments in this budget are purposely interconnected – with the ultimate goal of making lives better for all Islanders.”

“Madam Speaker, despite all of the challenges we have been through over the last four years, we have so much to celebrate as a province:

• Our population continues to grow, reaching 173,954 this past January, up by 7,096 or 4.2% since the same time last year;
• Employment had grown to an all-time high of 84,200 in 2022, and shown continued growth to 89,500 by April 2023; and
• Our Island saw the strongest economic growth east of Ontario, in 2022.

Madam Speaker, because of these positive indicators, our government will make the necessary investments today, for a better tomorrow. The budget which I present to you today includes $431 million in new spending, bringing the total expenditure to just over $3 billion. This reflects a 16.2% increase over 2022-23. At the same time, our revenues have also grown by $426 million or 16.6% over last year as well. This means our deficit for 2023-24 will stand at $97.6 million.”

Source: Prince Edward Island News Release