PCs assume power in New Brunswick as Liberals fall
Blaine Higgs becomes premier-designate weeks after election
FREDERICTON — Five weeks after New Brunswickers went to the polls, Tory Leader Blaine Higgs has become the premier-designate — and is promising to move quickly.
“People of the province should feel comfortable that the system worked, it just took a little longer,” Higgs said after meeting with Lt.-Gov. Jocelyne Roy Vienneau late Friday, hours after Brian Gallant’s Liberals fell on a confidence vote.
She asked if the Progressive Conservative leader had the confidence to form government, and Higgs said he told her that he did.
Afterward, Higgs struck an optimistic tone as he spoke to reporters.
“I believe our province can be in first place in all categories,” Higgs said. “And I believe that opportunity is right before us today.”
Gallant, whose government fell when the legislature voted against the throne speech, said he was unsure about his own political future, but he wished the Tories luck.
“Their success will be New Brunswick’s success,” he said.
Higgs said he wants the transition to occur as quickly as possible, with a cabinet by late next week and a throne speech before the end of the month.
“It will be a priority list and it will be focused on some big items we can agree on,” Higgs said. “We will set lofty goals and achieve them. We don’t need more taxes, we need results.”
The Tories won 22 seats in the September election — one more than the Liberals — while the Greens and People’s Alliance each won three seats.
Gallant sought to survive with a minority government by adding many of the opposition’s campaign promises to his party’s throne speech earlier this week, but his party’s fate was sealed Thursday when both the Tories and People’s Alliance said they’d vote to defeat it.
The Higgs’ minority government will depend on support from the opposition parties, and that has thrown the spotlight on language rights in Canada’s only official bilingual province. Higgs said Friday his priority would be to address a shortage of paramedics, where the failure to meet language requirements has left some ambulances unstaffed. He said francophones should not be concerned by his government’s approach.
The People’s Alliance, which has agreed to prop up the Tories for at least 18 months, put bilingualism and service duality front and centre in their campaign. Gallant said Friday it was important parties don’t use the issue as a “political weapon.”
He said it appeared the election results — which saw the Liberals dominate the largely francophone north and the Tories and People’s Alliance do better in the mostly anglophone south — suggested the province is divided along regional and linguistic lines. But he said people should not be taken in by those apparent divisions.
People’s Alliance Leader Kris Austin said his party will support the Tories to provide stability in the legislature. Green Leader David Coon and his two members voted to support the Liberal throne speech, which included many of his party’s campaign promises.
“Our message to the Conservatives is that it’s important that they include those things in their throne speech, and we’ll be working hard to make sure that happens,” Coon said.