Today, Newfoundland and Labrador NDP Leader Jim Dinn unveiled the party’s fully costed, balanced four-year platform – one focused on delivering immediate affordability relief and staffing up our healthcare system.
Speaking from a kitchen table, Dinn told reporters the NDP’s platform is grounded in the real conversations and tough choices families are making at kitchen tables across Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It’s not flashy but it prioritizes the very families and people who call our province home,” said Dinn. “It offers practical and responsible solutions to immediately lower costs for families and gets our healthcare system back on track – but it does so in a way that lives in reality and it lives within our means.”
It’s a sharp contrast from the uncosted political commitments from both the Liberals and Conservatives, who have made hundreds of millions of dollars in commitments without a plan on how to pay for them – both with a history of breaking promises once elected.
“We’ve seen it over and over again. Big campaign promises – with no price tags – that get abandoned as soon as they get elected,” said Dinn. “We’re not going to promise you something we can’t do – people have had enough of that under the Liberals and Conservatives.”
The fully-costed platform uses the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2025/2026 Budget numbers as the base of the costing. Using the projections for future years, the party achieved four years of balanced budget by finding savings with their plan to phase out travel nurses by hiring local nursing graduates into full-time, permanent positions and expanding the Registered Nurses Union’s of NL’s (RNUNL) nurse travel locum program to reach patients in rural and remote communities provincewide. Another significant saving comes from the party’s choice to end subsidies for oil and gas corporations and use those savings to directly fund their commitment to fully cut the HST off of all home heating – including electricity, oil, propane, and wood.
The platform achieves a balance of $43.6 million in 2026/2027, a balance of $1.6 million in 2027/2028, a balance of $302.7 million in 2028/2029, and a balance of $498.4 million in 2029/2030.
“It’s amazing what you can do when you aren’t giving the collection to your corporate donors,” said Dinn.
The New Democrats’ platform focuses on what matters most to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians: the rising cost of living, healthcare, and job creation. It offers practical solutions, including cutting the HST on all home heating, recruiting 1,000 public healthcare workers, and launching a critical minerals strategy to create good-paying jobs and grow the province’s economy – all while delivering four years of balanced budgets.
“We’ve said all along throughout this campaign – this election voters have a choice: a choice to vote for the same old politics or to vote for change,” said Dinn. “And if you want change, the NL NDP is ready to be your voice.”
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