The New Brunswick election shows that there are still Canadians that get bedazzled by big spending promises. Pictured: New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs. Photo Credit: Blaine Higgs/X.
Earlier this week, the New Brunswick Conservative government of Blaine Higgs was defeated after having been in power since 2018. The opposition Liberals led by Susan Holt won a majority government. Higgs himself lost his seat. This was an unfortunate result not only for the Conservatives but likely for the people of New Brunswick as well, as Higgs had accomplished a great deal in his six years as premier.
Higgs was an atypical politician, as he didn’t refrain from calling out members of his own party if he believed them to be in the wrong. One example concerned government spending, where he had no problem criticizing governments of all political stripes – including his own – for making expensive promises during election campaigns that ended up ruining government finances. For his part, over his six years as premier he accomplished six consecutive balanced budgets – a rare feat in Canada these days.
His fiscal control meant his government was also able to pay down some of the accumulated debt. Because of this stellar financial record, he was poised to offer tax cuts if re-elected, notably to cut the provincial portion of the HST by two percentage points to 13 per cent. Atlantic provinces have some of the highest rates of HST in the country, which further damages their already-fragile economies.
Higgs also broke the mould by including opposition leaders on an advisory committee during the Covid-19 crisis, a generous and sensible move. He also waded in to a number of controversial areas that many politicians avoid, such as parental right in public schools when gender identity issues and critical race theory are involved. He was the first leader in Canada to defend the rights of parents to be fully informed about any indication their child was seeking to alter their gender identity, showing national leadership on this important issue. That caused dissent within his own caucus, even though public opinion polls indicated the vast majority of parents supported his approach.
Higgs also went against the historical grain of Atlantic politics by stating he wanted to get rid of equalization payments even though his province was a net recipient of them to the tune of about $2.6 billion in 2023-24. He wanted to develop the province’s resources such as natural gas, something previous Liberal governments had refused to do, presumably because they wanted to continue to receive equalization payments from the rest of Canada instead of standing on their own two feet economically in the province.
The victor in this week’s election, Susan Holt, has made a number of promises that may prove difficult to keep. She will undoubtedly be a beneficiary of Higgs’ fiscal success in her early days as premier, as the Conservatives left the province’s finances in very good shape. Holt has led the New Brunswick Liberal party since August 2022. She will be the first female premier of the province. Prior to entering politics, she was President of the New Brunswick Business Council and also served former New Brunswick Liberal premier Brian Gallant in the role of senior economic development advisor.
The fact that Holt was advising Gallant is not a good omen for the province as Gallant’s government was characterized as fiscally irresponsible and imposed multiple tax increases on New Brunswick’s citizens. Gallant even ran afoul of the provincial Auditor General, who accused him of misrepresenting the province’s financial status by underreporting the size of the deficit and violating conventional accounting standards.
Some of Holt’s key election promises include the establishment of 30 new health-care clinics across the province over the next four years, reducing electricity bills by 10 per cent by removing the provincial sales tax on power and imposing a three per cent cap on rent increases. Given the similarity of these promises to those that have been made by politicians in other jurisdictions, and their failure to achieve them, it will be surprising if Holt can deliver. The notion of fixing health care by throwing even more taxpayer dollars at it has been widely debunked, as Canada is already a very big spender by international standards with poor health care outcomes. Also, at a time when rental accommodation is in short supply, imposing more limits on landlords will have the usual impacts of decreasing the supply of rental housing, as it always does.
Holt also waded into the contentious parental rights in public schools issue, and ended up bending to the woke crowd by stating she would adopt a different gender identity policy for schools. Instead of the current policy, which does not permit school staff to use a child’s chosen name and pronoun verbally unless they get parental consent for children under 16, Holt plans to remove the need for parental consent for children in Grade 6 and higher. Parental rights are set to take a blow under Holt’s government, as parents do not have to be informed by school officials about such things as their child’s desire to change their pronouns.
Higgs’ loss could also have been in part a result of the fatigue that voters everywhere experience with any government that has been in power for a while. Higgs’ government had been in power for two terms, and for any government the third term usually proves to be challenging. Time will tell whether Holt’s apparent plans to deliver a fairly typical Liberal agenda – more public sector spending, more tolerance of so-called woke sensibilities and even more spending on health care when Canada already spends more per capita than other countries with universal health care with inferior results – will bear fruit.
One interesting aspect of the Holt campaign was that they studiously avoided any mention of the Trudeau Liberals and any connection they may have had with the failed policies of the Trudeau government. But oddly, the federal Liberals, currently in serious internal turmoil, have seen some of the Trudeau-supporters in their ranks take comfort from the New Brunswick election results, believing them to be an indication of the Liberal brand not being a total disaster.
Despite all of the failures we have seen as a result of the policies of so-called “progressive” governments of late, both federally and in some provinces, the New Brunswick election shows that there are still Canadians that get bedazzled by big spending promises and big government policies, seemingly not realizing that spending will be coming from their wallet. Pity.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
