In all, the federal government is expected to transfer almost $4.3 billion to the province, an increase of $421 million from last spring's budget and $350 million more than the province expected in July. Documents released along with Thursday's budget update detail almost $1 billion in extra spending to deal with the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Ottawa is contributing $490 million toward those costs, while the Nova Scotia government is picking up the tab for $415 million of that extra spending. Not surprisingly, all that extra spending is driving up the provincial debt, which will grow by $1.1 billion this year to $16.8 billion. Casey did not anticipate using up that extra billion dollars in borrowing.

Source: CBC News December 17, 2020 15:37 UTC