New Brunswick Liberals win majority, Susan Holt first woman to lead province

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick voters have elected a Liberal majority government, tossing out the incumbent Progressive Conservatives after six years in power and handing the reins to the first woman ever to lead the province.

Liberal Leader Susan Holt is a relative newcomer to the province’s political scene, having won a byelection last year, eight months after she became party leader.

“Tonight’s results make it clear that New Brunswickers are ready for a change,” she told a boisterous crowd of supporters in downtown Fredericton on Monday night during an energetic speech that showed off her skills as a fluently bilingual premier-designate.

“We don’t take it lightly that you have put your trust in myself and my team and that you have hope for a brighter future.”

Flanked by her three young daughters, Holt paid tribute to several women who were trailblazers in provincial politics, including former NDP leader Elizabeth Weir and Aldéa Landry, the first Acadian woman in New Brunswick named as a cabinet minister.

“This is something that I have wanted for someone else for a long time,” Holt said after her victory speech. “I’ve been waiting to see this achievement in New Brunswick … and it blows my mind that it’s me — that is the first woman premier of New Brunswick.”

The 47-year-old former business advocate and public servant led the Liberals to victory after a 33-day campaign, thwarting Blaine Higgs’s bid to secure a third term as Tory premier. The Liberal win marks a strong repudiation of Higgs’s pronounced shift to more socially conservative policies.

“After six years of Blaine Higgs leadership, the province has said enough is enough,” said Donald Wright, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. “I think they are very tired of his top-down bullying and, at times, mean-spirited leadership.”

Among other things, Wright said voters were turned off by Higgs’s “negative rhetoric” about the use of pronouns and names by young transgender students, and his decision to reject all new applications for supervised drug-consumption sites.

As well, Higgs’s decision to repeatedly bash Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also failed to resonate with voters, though he said it remains unclear what the federal Liberals could learn from Monday’s results.

“I think this election had its own logic, its own dynamic,” Wright said. “I don’t know if it’s translatable to the federal scene.”

With all of the polls reporting, the Liberals won 31 of the legislature’s 49 seats. The Conservatives had 16 and the Greens two.

When the Liberal win was announced, Holt’s supporters stood and roared their approval. Amid the cheers and whistles, some women, including Landry, used tissues to wipe tears from their eyes.

“It means the world to me,” said Landry, who also served as deputy premier under former Liberal premier Frank McKenna. “It’s a milestone for the province.”

Trudeau congratulated Holt on social media, saying the pair would work together “to build more homes, protect our official languages, and improve health care for New Brunswickers.”

Higgs, meanwhile, lost in the southern New Brunswick riding of Quispamsis. In a speech to supporters in the riding, he confirmed that he would be stepping down after a leadership transition process.

“It’s certainly not the night we hoped for,” Higgs told the crowd at the St. Louis Bar and Grill in a strip mall. “Nevertheless, it is what it is. The people of New Brunswick have spoken.”

During his speech after he won his riding of Fredericton Lincoln, Green Party Leader David Coon pledged to continue building the party, but he then turned his sights on Higgs. “One thing is for sure,” he told the crowd at Dolan’s Pub in Fredericton. “We know that Blaine Higgs is no longer the premier of this province.” The audience responded with raucous cheers.

The election race was largely focused on health care and affordability but was notable for the remarkably dissimilar campaign styles of Holt and Higgs.

The 70-year-old Tory leader, a mechanical engineer and former Irving Oil executive, led a low-key campaign, during which he didn’t have any scheduled public events on at least 10 days — and was absent from the second leaders debate on Oct. 9.

Holt missed only two days of campaigning and submitted a 30-page platform with 100 promises, a far heftier document than the Tories’ two-page platform that included 11 pledges. As well, Holt repeatedly promised to bring a balanced approach to governing, pledging a sharp contrast to Higgs’s “one-man show taking New Brunswick to the far right.”

“We need a government that acts as a partner and not as a dictator from one office in Fredericton,” she said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

As well, Holt spent much of the campaign rolling out proposed fixes for a health-care system racked by a doctor shortage, overcrowded emergency rooms and long wait-times. She promised to open 30 community health clinics across the province by 2028.

The Tory campaign was focused on the high cost of living, with Higgs promising to lower the provincial harmonized sales tax by two percentage points to 13 per cent.

When the election was called on Sept. 19, the Conservatives held 25 seats, the Liberals held 16 seats, the Green Party had three, there was one Independent and four vacancies.

Higgs was hoping to become the first New Brunswick premier to win three consecutive elections since Liberal Frank McKenna won his third-straight majority in 1995. But it was clear from the start that Higgs would have to overcome some big obstacles.

On the first day of the campaign, a national survey showed he had the lowest approval rating of any premier in the country. That same morning, Higgs openly mused about how he was perceived by the public.

“I really wish that people could know me outside of politics,” he said, adding that a sunnier disposition might increase his popularity. “I don’t know whether I’ve got to do comedy hour or I’ve got to smile more.”

Still, Higgs had plenty to boast about, including six consecutive balanced budgets, a significant reduction in the province’s debt, income tax cuts, a booming population and a $1-billion infusion of funds into the health-care system.

But internal party strife dragged down his popularity. Since 2020, at least 12 Tory caucus members stepped down after clashing with the premier, some of them citing what they described as an authoritarian leadership style and a focus on conservative policies that represented a hard shift to the right.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

— With files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Quispamsis, N.B., and Michael MacDonald in Halifax

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press