Legislation will replace cabinet-controlled Jobs Fund with the Invest Nova Scotia Board

The province has announced it’s shelving the contentious Nova Scotia Jobs Fund, which saw hundreds of millions of dollars in grants handed out to companies in the province.

In its place the Liberals will create the arms-length Invest Nova Scotia Board which will eliminate cabinet’s role in handing out economic development money.

Economic Development minister Michel Samson explains the government’s Treasury and Policy Board would still have the power to confirm whether the fund has the capital available before each project approved by the new board is finalized.

“The Invest Nova Scotia Board will report to the minister each year and every approved project will be posted online for all Nova Scotians to see,” he explains.

Premier Stephen McNeil made it clear the new funding board would not be handing out grants, except for contributions such as government-owned land.

“If it was deemed that it was required for affordable housing and we could do that with the private sector; that we could use that land as part of a contribution to keep affordable rent as a certain aspect of that particular development,” he explains.

PC leader Jamie Baillie says it’s just another case of a Liberal promise not being as advertised during the election.

“We’re just exchanging the NDP chequebook for a liberal one that comes with a fancy co-signer and that’s not what Nova Scotians were promised,” he says.

Interim NDP leader Maureen MacDonald says all this does is move the decision out of Economic and Development and into the premier’s office.

“I don’t for one moment think that the premier’s explanation that there will be no public money invested in companies is going to come to fruition,” she predicts.

Meanwhile, the province still expects to pay out about $683-million that was already committed to companies through the Nova Scotia Jobs Fund over the next 28 years.