Fredericton — Despite receiving a “negative” credit assessment from the Dominion Bond Rating Service on Monday, the New Brunswick government says that it has buckets of easy cash to pay for this year’s budget.
Today, Finance Minister Cathy Rogers announced that it has secured a lender for the 2018-19 fiscal year, and that the government’s deficits are now fully funded for the foreseeable future.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” said Rogers. “The lender that we secured was very enthusiastic about the opportunity to finance our deficit. They are more than willing to lend us as much as we want — and at a very…umm, competitive…interest rate.”
Two days ago, the financial credibility of the province took a hit as the DBRS released their assessment of the government’s latest annual budget. The bond rating agency said that they question “the credibility of the current fiscal plan, given the lack of flexibility to respond to unforeseen pressures or fund new programs that are likely to arise as a result of campaign commitments in the upcoming fall election.”
“I think the financial concerns of the rating agency are totally overblown,” said Rogers. “We found a lender right away who is very flexible. They finance everyone; good credit, bad credit, no credit, bankruptcy, consumer proposal or previous repossessions — it doesn’t matter! They approve everyone immediately with $0 down loans!
“And if we run out of cash from that lender, there’s a gentleman on the north side named Bruno who can lend us some fast cash. He has a ‘no-default swimming-with-the-fishes’ policy, so I guarantee the government will be motivated to meet our payment schedule,” Rogers concluded.