National political watchers are all eyes on the British Columbia election. But let’s not forget the campaign getting underway in New Brunswick, where the Progressive Conservative party is attempting a third consecutive election win. If successful, they’ll land the first three-peat since the mid-1990s.
Blaine Higgs, the Picture Province’s premier since 2018, is staking his bid on a mix of strong management and bedrock conservative principles — fiscal prudence, limited government and lower taxes.
Over the years we’ve seen no shortage of conservative politicians across Canada talk a good game on common-sense government. Yet few are able to stay on point once they get into office and encounter the culture of the civil service, the power of vocal interest groups, and a media corps at odds with their agenda.
Having seen him in action for the past six years, it’s clear the New Brunswick PC leader sees conservative ideas as more than a ticket to power.
Recognizing Higgs’s successes goes beyond a preference for one political stripe over another. We’re more than willing to recognize that some Liberal leaders and senior ministers — B.C.’s former premier Christy Clark, Nova Scotia’s Stephen MacNeil, and Paul Martin at the federal level in his finance minister days — actually drew lessons from the right’s policy playbook.
The results are what matters. It’s impossible to overstate how much better New Brunswick’s balance sheet looks today, compared to when Higgs took office.
The Tories have occasionally been recognized nationally for their complete devotion to balanced budgets, even during the pandemic when other provinces were using the coronavirus as an excuse to overspend. But more important, and less-known, is what they’ve used those surpluses to do.
New Brunswick’s kryptonite has been public debt. It wasn’t long ago that even Liberal-leaning policy commentators were warning of a “fiscal cliff” that could imperil the government from delivering health care into the future.
This is why Higgs focused on reducing debt as quickly as possible — moving it to $11.8 billion from $14.3 billion, a 17 per cent decline. Relative to population it’s even better, with per capita net debt falling by more than $4,500 — a reduction of more than a quarter.
In practical terms this has meant less debt-servicing cost and more money for public services. (We would point out that, contrary to the fearful language of the Trudeau Liberals in Ottawa, New Brunswick shows you can fix the books without gutting public services. It just takes discipline.)
Having done a round of income tax cuts, Higgs is now pledging to return the 15 per cent provincial sales tax to where it was a decade ago, at 13 per cent, before the Liberals raised it. That’s been possible because of the extra fiscal room he’s created.
But conservative principles are about more than just money. Higgs has also advocated shale gas development, having argued early in his tenure that provinces should be penalized under equalization for failing to exploit their available resources.
He’s also waded intelligently into the culture wars — reforming woke school gender policies with a balanced approach that respects students’ choices on names and pronouns once they’re old enough to make them. For younger students, he’s rightly insisted on parental involvement and consent before schools can “socially transition” children.
Campaigns matter, and much will hinge on the thrust and parry of the next four weeks, with New Brunswickers heading to the polls Oct. 21. Higgs’s challenger, Liberal Leader Susan Holt, is a former political adviser and business council president.
She has pledged to keep spending in line with the province’s means — despite also calling for significant increases in health care and housing dollars in the budget.
It’s an irony, given that Holt was an adviser to the Liberal government that made New Brunswick’s debt-and-deficit hole even deeper. And, doubly, because it is Higgs’s path of fiscal reform that created the room to spend more without new debt.
Whether he wins or loses — and that’ll be for New Brunswick voters to decide — Higgs has staked out a legacy as a standard bearer for Canadian conservatism. His fellow premiers across the country should heed the lesson that power need not weaken your resolve.
National Post