HALIFAX -- The leaders of the NDP and the Liberals focused their election campaigns on young voters today in Nova Scotia, with Darrell Dexter trumpeting a tax credit his government gave to small business as a job creator and Stephen McNeil promising to remove interest on student loans from the province.
McNeil says his Liberal party thinks it is wrong to charge students interest on loans to further their post-secondary education, so he wants to eliminate interest at a cost of about $2.5 million a year to the government.
McNeil, who made his announcement at a coffee shop near the campus of Dalhousie University in Halifax, says the average student in Nova Scotia graduates with more than $30,000 in loans.
Dexter toured a high-tech small business in Halifax to highlight the NDP's decision to change the digital media tax credit, which he says is providing jobs to young people and helping Nova Scotia develop a digital technology industry.
Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie lamented the shrinking population among working-aged people during a campaign stop at the Halifax Metro Centre as he touted a plan to increase the province's population to one million people by 2025.
That would mean attracting about 50,000 more people to Nova Scotia based on Statistic Canada's population estimate for the province in 2012.
The three main party leaders have a light schedule today before a televised roundtable discussion in the evening, the first time Dexter, McNeil and Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie will meet face-to-face in the Oct. 8 election campaign.
