N.B. economic growth expected to be worst of 10 provinces in 2018

An average of private sector economic forecasts for 2018 places New Brunswick in last place,among provinces in expected growthnot tied for ninth with Newfoundland and Labrador as a Department of Finance chart released with the provincial budget suggests.

New Brunswick's last place ranking has been obscured since the budget's release because the department rounded up the province's score into a tie with Newfoundland and Labrador.

Sarah Bustard, a spokesperson with the department,said this type of practiceis common.

"The Department of Finance goes to onedecimal point when reporting on GDP growth," Bustard wrote in an email to CBC News.

"This is a consistent approach used across the country."

Atlantic Canada lagging behind

As part of the budget,New Brunswick's Department of Finance compiles eight private sector forecastsof economic growth among provinces for the coming year. It thenbreaksthem down into an average for each province.

The projections are done by Canada's six largest banks, the Conference Board of Canada and the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council.

This year provinces in Atlantic Canadafaredpoorly in the rankings:

• Prince Edward Islandfinished seventh with an averagegrowth for 2018 projected to be 1.5375 per cent.
• Nova Scotia finished eighth at 1.075 per cent.
• Newfoundland and Labrador was ninth at 1.000 per cent.
• New Brunswick finished last at 0.9625 per cent.

But after New Brunswick's Finance Department rounded growth rates off to one decimal place, it pushed the province into a tie with Newfoundland and Labrador a subtle change in ranking,further muddied by a chart the Finance Department produced to visually display the results.

The chart displays the adjusted economic growth projections for New Brunswick and Newfoundland as being numerically equal, butvisually places them in the wrong order.

On the chart, New Brunswick is in the ninth spot ahead of Newfoundland and Labrador, the opposite of their real positions.

Meanwhile, the Finance Department did not respond to a question on how the chart was constructed and why the two provinces ended up inreverse order of their true ranking.

Government not correcting position

New Brunswick's struggling economy has been an issue of significant political debate since the budget was released at the end of January.

Amisunderstanding of exactly where the province's economic prospects rank 10th rather than ninth among provinces has been common.

Opposition Leader Blaine Higgs, PCfinance critic Bruce Fitch and Opposition health critic Brian Macdonald have all made reference to New Brunswick being "tied with Newfoundland" in growth projections.

This has been an error no one in government has been correcting.

"When it says in your budget that we're tied with Newfoundland for the lowest growth in Canada, what do you think that indicates?" Macdonald asked Finance Minister Cathy Rogers during last week's CBC political panel.

Rogers ignored the error in Macdonald's depiction of where New Brunswick actually ranks.

"Of course we don't like being on the low end of other provinces," she said.