Former rebel New Brunswick transportation minister calling it quits

One of the rebels in the Progressive Conservative caucus says he will not re-offer in New Brunswick’s next provincial election.

Jeff Carr, the MLA for New Maryland-sunbury, told Brunswick News he’d continue serving his constituents until the next vote, expected in the fall, and then would call it quits.

“There does come a point in everyone’s career in the legislature when they know it’s time to go,” he said Tuesday. “I did say last summer I likely wouldn’t re-offer if Blaine was the premier. And it’s just taken me the time to decide when the time was right.”

Premier Blaine Higgs told reporters at a press conference he wasn’t surprised by his former minister’s decision. Higgs fired him as transportation minister last year during a period of political turmoil in which eight of the 29 Tory caucus members openly challenged his leadership.

“The statements he made last year were pretty clear,” Higgs said. “He made it publicly known he wouldn’t be re-offering or running if I was leader.”

Carr found himself on the outs with the premier when he and seven other members of the Tory caucus openly rebelled last year against Higgs’s changes to the gender policy at schools that his government had previously introduced quietly a few years before.

The premier’s changes, imposed by his new Minister of Education Bill Hogan, are deeply controversial and bucked by school district leaders. They are also subject to a lawsuit by human rights advocates.

Among the reforms, one of them forces children younger than 16 who consider themselves transgender not to use a different name in school without parental consent.