By John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Daily Gleaner
October 28, 2023
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs won’t shut the door to the possibility of a snap election, despite his Progressive Conservative government surviving two key votes in the legislature on Friday, a show of confidence aided by five rebels who are still on the outs with their leader.
Following the votes showing majority approval of MLAs in the house, the premier was coy with reporters about an early election call, only saying it wouldn’t happen that day.
“Let’s enjoy the day, how’s that?” Higgs said. “It’s good to have this behind us, for sure. We’ll continue to make preparations and be ready because it’s the prudent thing to do.”
The next provincial election isn’t scheduled till October 2024, but Higgs repeated several times – as he has for the last several months – that he needs stability to govern and won’t tolerate dissenters messing with his government’s agenda.
A house vote that wasn’t close
On Friday morning, after the premier had wrapped up his address to the reply to the throne speech, a vote was taken on a Liberal opposition amendment to try to defeat the government, which would have led to a provincial election at the end of November.
The amendment failed by a vote of 27 to 19, with the Tories in attendance all voting against, the opposition Liberals and Greens all voting for it.
Cabinet minister Ted Flemming was absent, due to a death in his family, as was Independent MLA Dominic Cardy, who’s recovering from COVID.
A vote to accept the throne speech was then taken, with a similar result. The Tories all voted for it, with the opposition voting against, 27 to 19.
“No surprises, but a bit of disappointment,” said Opposition Liberal Leader Susan Holt afterward. “New Brunswickers have lost confidence in this premier and his caucus is turning a blind eye to the damage he’s causing.”
The Liberals say the Higgs government is not doing enough to help New Brunswickers with the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing, a lack of daycare space and shortage of healthcare providers.
Holt acknowledged her party had talked to the Tory rebels about voting against their government – they have expressed disappointment in the premier for not consulting them properly and ignoring their concerns – but she said it didn’t do any good.
“They want to keep their jobs,” she said.
The dissenters – Ross Wetmore, Jeff Carr, Dorothy Shephard, Trevor Holder and Andrea Anderson-Mason – quickly filed by reporters to return to their ridings without comment.
Moncton East Tory MLA Daniel Allain, who had also voiced his displeasure earlier this year, said last week he had made peace with the premier.
The dispute with the premier boiled over after his government muscled through a change to the school gender policy, banning children under the age of 16 from using different names and pronouns without parental consent. Human rights groups are challenging the government action in court.
Election planning still underway
Holt said her team wouldn’t discount the idea of the premier going to see the lieutenant governor to ask for an election for at least another week. After that, the election would be pushed to December, risking a vote during a snowstorm.
Green Leader David Coon said following the house vote, the premier had no reason to toy with the idea of calling an early election, calling it “fluff.” He said he’d be on guard until at least Monday. After that, he doubts the Tories would risk an election till spring.
“I can’t see an election being called in December as we approach the holiday season. People would be furious.”
Higgs said he was still concerned the rebels would disrupt his government’s agenda by taking their concerns outside the private caucus room and publicly airing them.
“If there are concerns, we figure that out, and then the government is supposed to go out in unison to support the next steps, even though it’s rarely or never unanimous. There are opposing viewpoints, and I’ve said all along I don’t have a problem with that. It enriches the discussion. But at the end of the day, if you don’t get your own way, you can’t keep putting that out there in the public.”
Higgs said after winning the 2018 provincial election, the Tories had to deal with a major spring flood. During and after the 2020 election, his government had to handle the pandemic. He said now he just wants to have some stability and govern, without another party rolling back his government’s accomplishments, such as tax cuts, paying down the debt and growing the population from 800,000 to close to 850,000 over the last year and a half.
‘Get rid’ of carbon tax: premier
Higgs also chastised reporters for focusing on a possible election – even though he was the one who’s been floating it for months – and said he wanted to talk about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision Thursday evening to get rid of the carbon tax on home heating oil in Atlantic Canada. The federal government is also promising free heat pumps for households that earn anything below the median income and to double the climate change rebate incentive to rural residents.
“It’s nice to see the leader of the opposition all of a sudden think Trudeau is doing the right thing,” Higgs said. “What have we been talking about for the last four months and the last two, three weeks in the house? This should have happened long ago. But all of a sudden, he’s down in the polls, climate change is a different topic. The next step is, look at the policy in its entirety because it’s not working.
“It’s costing us more money to live and work, and it’s the root cause of the situation we’re in. So let’s fix that, get rid of it.”
Higgs hates the carbon taxes the Trudeau Liberal government have introduced to wean people off fossil fuels. He said if Canada was serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stopping climate change, it would support efforts to use its natural gas as a transition fuel to get the world off of coal, one of the dirtiest forms of carbon pollution.
“Let’s look at world emissions. Not the one and a half per cent of world emissions that we have in Canada, but the emissions in a place like China, which builds two coal plants a year. We can have a huge impact on the ability for them not to do that.”
Opposition supports Trudeau’s changes
Holt said she agreed with Trudeau’s reforms, but argues Higgs isn’t offering enough incentives to lighten people’s carbon footprints.
“It’s encouraging to see a leader who listens to their team and puts forward a solution that’s best for New Brunswickers,” she said, a reference to Trudeau responding to the concerns raised by Atlantic Liberal MPs.
She doesn’t think it’s bad the carbon tax is gone on heating oil.
“We can’t render people bankrupt as we pursue climate change. It demonstrates we need a balanced approach that has carrots and sticks. So we’re looking for those carrots that really help people change their behaviour that’s realistic. How can people transition off heating oil? How do we help them do that?”
Coon agreed, and pointed out that as far back as 2008, when federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion proposed a carbon tax, heating oil was supposed to be exempt.
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“They said this is crazy to put on people’s heating fuel,” said Coon, who’d talked to Dion when he was the executive director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. “We want something to fight climate change that’s going to be effective, that will at the same time reduce people’s heating costs. That’s doing things like providing financing, so people can replace their oil furnaces with heat pumps. That way you save money on your heating costs big time as well as drop your emissions dramatically.”