Liberals promise to improve highways, expand cell service

Nova Scotia’s Liberal party would raise the province’s highways budget by $40 million, said party leader Zach Churchill on Thursday.

The increase would bring the highway capital budget to $540 million, the largest on record. Churchill said the party would prioritize completing Nova Scotia’s 100-series highways.

The Liberals also pledged to spend $60 million over four years to build over 80 new cell towers across the province, starting along Nova Scotia’s highway corridors.

“If you are on a 100-series highway in Nova Scotia, you should have safe roads and reliable cell service,” said Churchill during Thursday’s news conference.

Churchill said Premier Tim Houston’s plan to eliminate tolls would take “vital resources from our public works budget” and “create a situation where our roads get worse and worse.”

Churchill also said “too many people” are using existing infrastructure as a result of Houston’s “reckless plan” to double the province’s population.

The plan he referred to was the Progressive Conservative Party’s Population Growth Strategy, tabled in 2021, which set a goal of reaching the two million mark by 2060.

“Our plan instead will improve our highways, our rural roads, and ensure that we are increasing cell coverage from one end of the province to the other,” said Churchill.

He said these plans would be in addition to the Liberals’ plan to replace the four-lane MacKay Bridge, which connects Halifax and Dartmouth, with a new six-lane bridge.

On Wednesday, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said the party would provide a “gas tax holiday” that would temporarily cut the provincial tax on gasoline while inflation is high. Chender said it would save people 15.5 cents per litre at the pumps.

Later on Thursday, Churchill was to face off with Chender and Houston in a televised election debate.