David Coon, the Leader of the Green Party of New Brunswick, is calling on Finance Minister Blaine Higgs to return to taxation levels of 2008 to fight New Brunswick's deficit. "We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem, so he needs to restore the revenue we lost when the Liberals recklessly cut taxes in their 2009 budget," said Green Party Leader David Coon.

The provincial government's financial update released on Thursday projects the deficit to be $173 million larger than originally forecast. In response Finance Minister Blaine Higgs has said he will cut spending even further.

"Our health and school systems have been cut to the bone. Deeper cuts will not dig us out of our financial hole, but they will harm public services. It's time to face the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want to maintain the integrity of our health and education systems we have to raise revenues so we can pay our way," said Coon.

The Green Party criticized the Liberal tax cuts, at the time, as unfair and unsustainable, predicting they would create a structural deficit.

"The Liberals made a horrible mistake when they made their unaffordable tax cuts. Finance Minister Blaine Higgs has the power to fix the problem by returning to the tax regime of five years ago, but he seems hell-bent on cutting our health and education systems instead," said Coon