New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs officially kicked off the election campaign on Thursday.
Voters will go to the polls on October 21, as required by provincial fixed-date election law.
Thursday morning’s announcement marks the start of a 33-day campaign that is expected to focus on economic issues, but the Higgs government’s provocative approach to gender identity issues could also find its way into the conversation.
The 70-year-old Progressive Conservative leader, who is seeking a third consecutive term, drew national attention by requiring teachers to get parental consent before using the preferred names and pronouns of students under 16.
More recently, however, the former Irving Oil executive has tried to reach out to inflation-affected voters by promising, if re-elected, to cut the provincial harmonized sales tax (HST) by two percentage points, to 13 per cent.
At the time of dissolution, the Conservatives held 25 of the 49 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberals had 16 seats, the Greens had three, and there was one independent and four vacancies.
According to JP Lewis, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick, the three main issues facing New Brunswickers are the cost of living, health care and education.
“In many areas, the main concern is inflation – the cost of living, housing prices, etc.,” he said.
Richard Saillant, an economist and former vice-president of the Université de Moncton, says the Conservatives’ promise to cut the HST would be very costly. “I don’t think there’s a lot of room to manoeuvre for that,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure they can do it without running a bigger deficit.”
Mr. Saillant also highlighted growing pressures to invest more in health care, education and housing, all of which face constant demands from a growing population.
Liberals and Greens
Mr Higgs’ main rivals are Liberal Leader Susan Holt and Green Party Leader David Coon, both of whom focus on economic and social issues.
Mme Holt, the Liberal leader for two years, has promised to impose rent caps and introduce a subsidized school food program. The Liberals also want to open at least 30 community health clinics over the next four years.
Mr. Coon promised that a Green government would create an “electricity support program,” which would pay families earning less than $70,000 a year about $25 a month to offset “unprecedented” rate increases.
Higgs first came to power in 2018, when the Conservatives formed the province’s first minority government in 100 years. In 2020, he called a snap election — the first province to go to the polls after the COVID-19 pandemic began — and won a majority.
Since then, several high-profile cabinet ministers and caucus members have resigned after clashing with their leader, some of them citing what they described as an authoritarian leadership style and a focus on policies that represent a sharp shift to the right of the political spectrum.
Political scientist Lewis believes that the Progressive Conservatives in New Brunswick are “in the midst of a reinvention.”
“It seems that [M. Higgs] is now shaping this party, really according to his vision of the world, he said. Even if [les progressistes-conservateurs] are down in the polls, I still think they are still very much in the running.”
Meanwhile, the legislature remained divided along linguistic lines, with the Conservatives holding the upper hand in the English-speaking ridings of central and southern New Brunswick, while the Liberals held most of the French-speaking ridings in the north.
The expectations of Acadians
The Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick (SANB) recalled on Thursday the priorities of the province’s Acadian and Francophone community in four main areas: education, health, economic development and immigration.
The SANB is calling in particular for the creation of a French-language Ministry of Education and the management of early childhood centres in public schools by French-speaking governance structures.
The organization also proposes an in-depth review of health governance to improve the services offered to French speakers.
The SANB also wants greater provincial autonomy in the management of immigration. It also advocates for a system that allows the two linguistic communities “to develop autonomous strategies adapted to their specific needs, aimed at guaranteeing equal opportunities for Francophones.”
Discontent since 2022
The party’s discontent began in October 2022, when Education Minister Dominic Cardy stormed out of cabinet, saying he could no longer tolerate the premier’s leadership style. In his resignation letter, he cited controversial plans to reform French-language education in Canada’s only officially bilingual province. The Higgs government eventually abandoned those plans.
Then, in 2023, the Higgs government announced changes to “Policy 713,” which now requires students under 16 who are exploring their gender identity to get parental consent before teachers can use their preferred first names or pronouns.
When several Conservative MPs voted with the opposition to call for an external, independent review of the change, Premier Higgs ousted the dissenters from his cabinet.
And the attempt by some party members to subject their leader to a vote of confidence has failed.