Ex-Irving executive to take reins in N.B.
The man poised to become New Brunswick’s next premier has a well-earned reputation as a tight-fisted fiscal manager whose resume includes 33 years as a senior executive working for one of Canada’s richest families: the Irving clan.
Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs, a 64-year-old engineer and former finance minister, was hired by Irving Oil a week after he graduated from the University of New Brunswick. He was eventually promoted to director of distribution, overseeing oil transportation across Eastern Canada and New England.
His extensive big business experience has informed his approach to politics. Higgs refers to citizens as customers, and his campaign for the Sept. 24 election was replete with references to getting results. “I came from a company where you had to deliver results in order to survive,” Higgs said when he released the Progressive Conservative platform.
“(New Brunswickers) are paying the bills but they’re not getting the service to reflect the amount of money being spent.”
Higgs will form the next government after the Liberals lost a confidence vote on Friday. His party won 22 seats while the incumbent Liberals held onto just 21. The Greens and People’s Alliance each hold three seats.
He had promised to cut government waste and balance the province’s budget in two years — a year earlier than his outgoing rival, Liberal Premier Brian Gallant.
And like other right-ofcentre politicians, he also promised not to raise taxes, while offering a modest spending plan.
“We will set lofty goals and achieve them. We don’t need more taxes, we need results,” Higgs said Friday.
Tom Bateman, a political-science professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, says as a former Irving executive, Higgs will face scrutiny.
“Mr. Higgs would be well aware of that perception and would want to disabuse people of the idea that he was a cipher for the Irving companies.”
The company is one of the province’s largest employers, with interests in forestry, pulp and paper, transportation, oil refining and distribution, retail, media outlets and shipbuilding. Canadian Business magazine says the privately owned empire was thought to be worth $7.8 billion, making the Irving family the eighth richest in Canada.