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NDP Leader Tom Mulcair speaks to supporters along with candidate Andrew Thomson, left, during a campaign stop in Toronto on Thursday, August 27, 2015Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Tom Mulcair says an NDP government would try to come up with a way to reverse cuts to provincial health transfers, though it won't happen immediately.

Mulcair promised last year to put any surplus toward reversing Stephen Harper's plan to slow the rate of increases in federal health care transfers — which could amount to $36-billion less for provincial coffers over the next 10 years.

He says today that won't happen immediately because now it looks like there will not be a budget surplus this year.

Based on Bank of Canada projections, the parliamentary budget office has said Ottawa is headed for a $1-billion shortfall in 2015-16, despite a projected surplus in the 2015 budget.

Mulcair says he would have two years before the health transfer restrictions kick in, so he would dedicate that time to avoiding those cuts.

He has been adamant this week that his first budget will be balanced and he has said he believes subsequent budgets would be balanced too, but he has not addressed how or if he would find a surplus to funnel into health transfers.

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