N.B. Liberals officially launch election bid before official start of fall campaign

FREDERICTON — The New Brunswick Liberals got a jump on the province’s coming fall election by officially launching their party’s campaign on Sunday, saying they’re focused on addressing affordability and improving the ailing health-care system.

The kickoff, which took place in the Fredericton riding Liberal Leader Susan Holt hopes to represent in the next legislative session, came before the official start of the general election set for Oct. 21.

Health care emerged as a priority in the party’s platform, in which the Liberals promise to open at least 30 community care clinics over the next four years at a cost of $115.2 million to improve New Brunswickers’ access to primary health care.

Holt said medical professionals have been “asking for a collaborative care model that our government has been slow to roll out.”

“It’s daunting when you think about the challenges that we’re facing in health, and we’ve brought together a team that can tackle those challenges,” she said to a room of roughly 400 supporters who clapped and banged red-and-white thunder sticks as she spoke.

Holt currently represents the riding of Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isidore, which she secured in an April 2023 byelection triggered when Liberal Denis Landry resigned to pursue municipal politics. This time she has opted to run in a riding in Fredericton, which she calls her hometown.

The Liberals also promise to roll out a $27.4-million-a-year program to offer free or low-cost food at all schools starting next September.

The governing Progressive Conservatives, led by Blaine Higgs, have so far pledged to lower the Harmonized Sales Tax from 15 per cent to 13 per cent if re-elected.

In response to the Liberal campaign launch, the Tories released a statement from candidate Glen Savoie touting the proposed tax cut and pledging more “incremental improvements” in health care.

But the party also sent a newsletter to supporters earlier in the day sounding the alarm about the sizable war chest their rivals have amassed and calling for more financial backing. Year-end reports filed to Elections New Brunswick this summer showed the Liberals had a surplus of $319,585, while the Progressive Conservatives surplus totaled $254,035.

“They’ll spend whatever it takes to push their agenda, and with Team Trudeau backing them up, they’re ready to flood this campaign with cash and exploit every possible resource to get a leg up,” the letter reads, invoking the spector of a Liberal prime minister whose popularity has been in freefall for months.

When asked about the comparison to Justin Trudeau, Holt called herself a “girl from Fredericton South Silverwood,” the riding in which she’s running.

“The premier can obsess about Trudeau because he thinks that’s how he can win,” she said. “We’re offering my leadership and a team of people who have the solutions and the commitment to focus on New Brunswickers.”

Recent polls suggest Higgs, whose leadership style has drawn critiques from within his caucus and whose policies on pronoun use in schools have stirred considerable controversy within the province, may face an uphill battle with voters this fall.

J.P. Lewis, political science professor at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John, said three primary issues will be on voters’ minds when they head to the polls: affordability, health care and education.

“I think, especially, across many jurisdictions, affordability is the top concern, cost of living, housing prices,” he said in a recent interview.

He noted most New Brunswickers may not yet have a strong sense of Holt as a leader, noting the Liberals spent the summer introducing her to the people.

Lewis said it will take the campaign, the leaders’ debates and meet-and-greets for voters to develop a clear sense of her personality and leadership style.

The Liberals will be facing off against a party whose internal struggles have often played out in the public eye. A few Tories have already crossed the aisle in a bid to oust their former party from power.

One of them is two-term Progressive Conservative member of Parliament John Herron, who will be running as a provincial Liberal when he faces off against Christian television host Faytene Grasseschi in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins.

Herron said “there’s a massive amount of fatigue for the premier at the moment,” citing the 12 Progressive Conservative members of Higgs’s own caucus and cabinet who have opted not to run for re-election.

“I think that’s a strong signal that (Higgs) doesn’t play that well in the sandbox with others. I think New Brunswickers want a government that can work together, that can collaborate, that can take on the big challenges.”

Another well-known Tory running on the Liberal ticket is Bruce Northrup, who is running in the riding of Sussex Three Rivers which he held as a Progressive Conservative from 2006 until 2020. That seat is currently held by Tourism Minister Tammy Scott-Wallace.

Northrup, who described himself as a staunch Progressive Conservative, said he came out of retirement to run on the Liberal ticket because he wasn’t happy with things in his riding.

He said he wants to focus on flood adaptation and support for the riding’s regional hospital.

“I’m not coming back for the paycheque. I’m financially sound. I’m 68 years old, and my wife and I are mortgage free, and we don’t have any problems with money,” he said.

“I’m coming back for my love of Sussex … I’m coming back for my love of the Sussex Three Rivers riding.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2024.

— With files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press