News Release

FREDERICTON (GNB) – Auditor general Paul Martin reported on his office’s fiscal 2022 financial statement audit of the province and other key findings. Overall, New Brunswick’s financial condition continues to improve.

“The province’s financial condition has significantly improved from 2021. This improvement in 2022 is mostly due to the large surplus from increased tax revenues, and a decrease in net debt,” said Martin.

With the province’s $777 million surplus in 2022, net debt is down $1.1 billion from last year. The province’s net debt now stands at $12.4 billion which is made up of $9.1 billion in tangible capital assets (such as roads, schools, and hospitals) and $3 billion in accumulated past deficits for which future revenues still must fund.

A note of caution was provided too, as funded debt (the amount the province owes its creditors) remains at a historic high of $18.4 billion, with $4.6 billion of repayments required over the next four years.

“Important fiscal work still remains in funding deficits of past years, as well as reducing amounts owed to the province’s creditors,” said Martin.

The report released today includes chapters on the province’s financial condition and significant findings from financial audits of the province and its Crown agencies.

The report also includes the auditor general’s concerns relating to NB Power’s ability to self sustain operations, comments on the province’s implementation of a new enterprise resource planning system, Service New Brunswick’s property assessment processes where there are still 61,000 properties with unvalidated data from the 2017 FastTrack initiative, and a discussion on accounting errors across departments and Crown agencies.

All chapters on the financial audit can be found in Volume III of the 2022 auditor general report, available online.