N.L. has the country's highest per-capita debt. It's all but hidden in the election.

ST. JOHN'S - Business and taxpayer organizations are calling on party leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador to stop making costly election promises, as the province carries the country's highest per-capita provincial debt.

Whoever forms government after the Oct. 14 election will inherit a net debt approaching $20 billion in a province about 545,000 people. That debt will cost more than a billion dollars to service in the current fiscal year.

That's money that won't be available for other expenses, such as health care and education, said AnnMarie Boudreau, chief executive of the St. John's Board of Trade.

"We can't lose sight of the fiscal reality that Newfoundland and Labrador is facing," Boudreau said in recent interview. "We can't make a laundry list of expenditures or additional inves