Timeline: Major events during first term of Nova Scotia's NDP government

Darrell Dexter takes the oath as he is sworn in as Nova Scotia's 27th premier and the first New Democrat to lead a government in Atlantic Canada at a public ceremony in Halifax on June 19, 2009. (Andrew Vaughan/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

June 19, 2009: Darrell Dexter becomes Nova Scotia's 27th premier and the first New Democrat to lead a government in Atlantic Canada as he and his cabinet are sworn-in.

Nov. 13, 2009: A panel appointed to look at the province's finances says the new NDP government should break a series of election promises by cutting spending, raising income taxes, increasing the harmonized sales tax by two percentage points and delaying a promise to balance the books in the 2010-11 budget until 2012.

April 6, 2010: The government hikes the HST by two percentage points, bringing it to 15 per cent, and tables a 2010-11 budget that forecasts a deficit of $222 million. A year later it announces it will end the fiscal year with a $447-million surplus.

May 18, 2010: The RCMP confirms it is investigating possible criminal wrongdoing by five Nova Scotia politicians after the auditor general releases a report questioning constituency allowance spending by all three parties. Three former politicians and one sitting member of the legislature are eventually charged with fraud and breach of trust.

Nov. 18, 2010: The governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador announce a plan to develop the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project. Known as Muskrat Falls, the $7.7-billion development in Labrador will bring power to the island of Newfoundland and continue on through subsea cables to Nova Scotia.

June 14, 2011: A subsidiary of Korean company Daewoo opens a manufacturing plant for wind turbine components in an old railcar factory in Trenton after the provincial government buys a 49 per cent stake in the operation.

Oct. 19, 2011: The federal government announces the Irving Shipyard in Halifax has won a competition to build the navy's next fleet of warships, a program worth $25 billion that Dexter describes as the biggest industrial opportunity for the province since Confederation.

May 30, 2012: Maureen MacDonald becomes Nova Scotia's first female finance minister after Graham Steele decides to step down and leave politics at the next election.

June 15, 2012: Resolute Forest Products closes the former Bowater Mersey paper mill in Brooklyn, throwing 320 people out of work about six months after the province announced a $25-million forgivable loan to the company and bought woodland from Resolute for $23.75 million.

Sept. 22, 2012: The government reaches a deal to get the shuttered New Page Port Hawkesbury paper mill operating by signing a $124.5-million aid package in addition to $36.8 million it spent to keep the mill ready to restart.

April 4, 2013: The government tables a budget forecasting a slim surplus of $16.4 million for the 2013-14 fiscal year. In a fiscal update four months later, it says the surplus has risen to $18.3 million.

May 9, 2013: Percy Paris resigns as minister of economic and rural development after he is charged with assault and uttering threats following an alleged scuffle with a Liberal member of the legislature.