New Brunswick Election

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by lirette

Minister of local government for Hickey?

It would be quite a high profile post for one of the youngest cabinet ministers in NB history, but it's not impossible. If so, I hope he's a fan of amalgamation.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by AGGUS

So far his speech is a class act to be honest, perhaps his best speech of the campaign.

It would have been nice to see that side of Blaine Higgs a bit more often in the last two or three years.

Faytene Grasseschi's loss is the best news of the night. We don't need anyone like that anywhere near the legislature.

John Dornan's win must be a nice "**** you" to Higgs.

Having worked with David Alston in the past I'm disappointed he lost. He would have been great and I'm interested in seeing what he does next.

It's quite clear that paying down the provincial debt and a sales tax cut was not enough to keep the incumbent party in power when so many people are struggling with healthcare and housing. I think there was a clear disconnect between the premier and what people actually want from their government. Not too surprising when we hear the stories from former ministers about Higgs' inability to work with others. It's also very difficult to pull off a win when so many incumbents don't reoffer.

Higgs built up a lot of goodwill early in the pandemic and squandered most of it quite quickly. That was always going to be the case to some extent when pandemic restrictions were lifted and COVID cases went up but in an alternate reality he could have been a bit more compassionate and willing to work with others, rather than taking a page out of the populist playbook and dividing the province on things like policy 713.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the Holt government can deliver balanced budgets. I think small deficits may be inevitable though. There are a lot of positives things about the trajectory that the province has been on in the last few years and we need a government who can build on that. Obviously some spending is necessary – we have legitimate worker shortages in health care and education that need to be filled and if we want to attract more people to New Brunswick we need to pay higher wages too. Money certainly doesn't fix everything of course but it definitely helps in some situations.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Holt just had a big talk with CBC. Two things she said she'd be doing as soon as she got in, was she was going to cut the Carbon Gas Tax (4c/l) and remove the tax from power bills. It'll be interesting to see how bad that affects the budget in the end; but at the very least it will be a nice perk going into the Christmas season.

She's also planning to get 10 health centres set up next year, and may even be able to pull off 11 or 12. It'll be interesting to see how that changes the healthcare situation here.

I'm glad that she'll be investing in health care, we need it. I hope that the federal government tones down the immigration though. Stressing the healthcare system during covid when alot of healthcare workers left and then increasing population by mass immigration was a disaster waiting to happen and we need the system to catch up first.

I was looking forward to maybe having no debt someday and transforming the province from a have not to a have province, with a good economy. That will have to wait as we build up services.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by OliverD

Rather than taking a page out of the populist playbook and dividing the province on things like policy 713.

People who come up with these types of policies are the ones dividing. Who would actually think that you could come up with something like that and have everyone okay with it? If we don't agree though then we are the divisive ones and we are the problem? Definitely not.

Higgs needed to go perhaps but he was one of the only ones to have the balls to stand up to it. I'm glad he did. I'm sure that more private schools and home schooling will increase because of these types of policies. That bleed was already happening, this will make it worse. People are keeping their kids out of the public school system more than ever.

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

People who come up with these types of policies are the ones dividing. Who would actually think that you could come up with something like that and have everyone okay with it? If we don't agree though then we are the divisive ones and we are the problem? Definitely not.

Higgs needed to go perhaps but he was one of the only ones to have the balls to stand up to it. I'm glad he did. I'm sure that more private schools and home schooling will increase because of these types of policies. That bleed was already happening, this will make it worse. People are keeping their kids out of the public school system more than ever.

The divisiveness is not necessarily caused by the policy itself. It's around the ridiculous rhetoric that erupted around the policy and was not quelled by the Higgs government.

Policy 713 was created by the Higgs government, based on consultations with teachers, parents, students, and others. Bill Hogan said he was reviewing the policy based on feedback he had received from the public. The extent of this feedback was exaggerated by the government, and some of the letters released by the government were simply transphobic/homophobic. A cabinet minister sent an email to Higgs from a parent who claimed that there were schools in New Brunswick that had cat litter for students who "identified as cats" which was absolutely not true.

This all resulted in people attacking teachers, making all sorts of baseless claims about teachers, calling them groomers, etc. Higgs did not defend them and rather made comments about how he would be concerned about sending his own children to public schools in New Brunswick. To this day there are people who claim that teachers are forcing kids to change their genders without knowledge of the parents.

This nonsense is all a result of how Higgs dealt with the policy review and not necessarily the policy itself.

[SevenSquared]

I certainly don't envy Holt having to deal with the mess Higgs left New Brunswickers with.

More than anything, I'm just glad to see the urban ridings getting some very strong collective representation in this new government. With Holt not being anywhere near the autocratic type of leader Higgs was, we can at least hope this will lead to some meaningful investment into our rapidly growing cities going forward.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by OliverD

It would have been nice to see that side of Blaine Higgs a bit more often in the last two or three years.

John Dornan's win must be a nice "**** you" to Higgs.

Having worked with David Alston in the past I'm disappointed he lost. He would have been great and I'm interested in seeing what he does next.

You can say that again, that was the most decent side of Higgs I think any of us have ever seen, but what exactly what he going to do, pull a Trump and say it was rigged? It wasn’t surprising, but still nice to see.

It’s quite disappointing Alston lost by so few votes, when even a small fraction of the NDP vote would have won him the seat. Do you think he’d consider running for mayor of Saint John? I think he’d be quite a big improvement. I fear we might get stuck with Wayne Long as our next mayor.

A second term for mayor Reardon wouldn’t be terrible, she’s been adequate, but I think someone like Alston could do a lot better.

[gtsoc]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

You can say that again, that was the most decent side of Higgs I think any of us have ever seen, but what exactly what he going to do, pull a Trump and say it was rigged? It wasn’t surprising, but still nice to see.

It’s quite disappointing Alston lost by so few votes, when even a small fraction of the NDP vote would have won him the seat. Do you think he’d consider running for mayor of Saint John? I think he’d be quite a big improvement. I fear we might get stuck with Wayne Long as our next mayor.

A second term for mayor Reardon wouldn’t be terrible, she’s been adequate, but I think someone like Alston could do a lot better.

Wayne doesn’t live in Saint John.

[ChampduLarge]

Re: People who come up with these types of policies are the ones dividing. Who would actually think that you could come up with something like that and have everyone okay with it? If we don't agree though then we are the divisive ones and we are the problem? Definitely not.

A few things here:
- The one who came up with the original Policy 713 was Higgs, in 2020. Not any other government.
- Higgs out and out lied about complaints about the policy when he first started revisiting. The CBC did an FOI on complaints between when it was implemented and then the revisions started to be announced, and they where told there was nothing to give as there had not been complaints.
- So Higgs revised his own policy. Why is that? Is it possible that he was looking to foment culture wars? Missouri, for instance, had 49 bills proposed against transgener people. In January 2024. The only possible reason for the whole 713 thing was that he believed that he had found a powerless minority that could be used for his purposes, he was looking for a lift for his election chances by mobilizing a base of people. This is very frankly out of the US playbook.

And I think this backfired spectacularly. There are an extremely small number of people who are violently opposed to trans stuff. Most people find it confusing, or funny, or they don't care. The ones who are closest to the issue, trans people themselves, their relatives, their doctors, their teachers, were all opposed to the changes Higgs made.

This is why I laughed out loud when he lost his seat. This is why he did not deserve to re re-elected. Higgs did some good stuff, I am happy the province is on an even keel financially, he was not a monster but he misjudged the whole thing.

[lirette]

Originally Posted by ChampduLarge

Re: People who come up with these types of policies are the ones dividing. Who would actually think that you could come up with something like that and have everyone okay with it? If we don't agree though then we are the divisive ones and we are the problem? Definitely not.

A few things here:
- The one who came up with the original Policy 713 was Higgs, in 2020. Not any other government.
- Higgs out and out lied about complaints about the policy when he first started revisiting. The CBC did an FOI on complaints between when it was implemented and then the revisions started to be announced, and they where told there was nothing to give as there had not been complaints.
- So Higgs revised his own policy. Why is that? Is it possible that he was looking to foment culture wars? Missouri, for instance, had 49 bills proposed against transgener people. In January 2024. The only possible reason for the whole 713 thing was that he believed that he had found a powerless minority that could be used for his purposes, he was looking for a lift for his election chances by mobilizing a base of people. This is very frankly out of the US playbook.

And I think this backfired spectacularly. There are an extremely small number of people who are violently opposed to trans stuff. Most people find it confusing, or funny, or they don't care. The ones who are closest to the issue, trans people themselves, their relatives, their doctors, their teachers, were all opposed to the changes Higgs made.

This is why I laughed out loud when he lost his seat. This is why he did not deserve to re re-elected. Higgs did some good stuff, I am happy the province is on an even keel financially, he was not a monster but he misjudged the whole thing.

It doesn't really get talked about enough that Higgs essentially manufactured this issue by fighting his own governments policy and even to the point of wanting to use the not withstanding clause despite basically no evidence that voters wanted that. Its rarely ever mentioned but 2 conservative premiers in PEI & NS both supported keeping a similar policy as the original 713. Both of those premiers currently have strong favorability ratings. Meanwhile Higgs language in NB demonized teachers and had a unfortunate number of people accusing them of being pedos and groomers.

NB lags behind in education in nearly every metric, and is bleeding bus drivers left and right, but the education minister obsessed over this issue because it was easier to distract than addressing the issues that impact far more kids.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by gtsoc

Wayne doesn’t live in Saint John.

Pretty sure he maintains a residence in Saint John, or could at any time. He's told people on social media on multiple, multiple occasions that he lives in Saint John.

It's clear his "camp" out in KV is more like his primary home, but I can't really fault him if he maintains a primary residence in Saint John, as he has every legal right to do that.

I just don't see why else Wayne Long would have decided to stage his little back bench coup against Trudeau, unless he had some future plans to run for political office, or get some sort of dream job from PP like the Boston Consulate General post. in exchange for his little rebellion against JT.

There's perhaps no bigger, fake Boston sports fan in Greater Saint John than Wayne Long, and I could see him doing almost anything to get that posting, including backstabbing JT in the house of commons, which he did. So while Wayne would never run as a Conservative, he would totally take the post as Canadian Consul General in Boston.

Still, that's a pretty big reach , so the most logical public office for him to run for would be the mayors office.

If he had any sort of plans to run for the premiership, they are mostly kaput at this point. Unless the NBPC's implode and rebrands themselves as the New Brunswick Party, ala the Sask Party. I could totally see Wayne Long getting on board with a party like that if it was billed as the return to the progressive conservative values of Hatfield, Lord, etc, that so many hurt, former conservative voters have been crying out for in the comment section since last night.

Still, I don't think he went against Trudeau just for the street cred... I think Wayne Long still as aims to return to politics. As another poster said on here before, he's the rare example of someone who somehow fails upwards. I wouldn't bet on seeing the last of him after he concludes his term as MP, but I hope I'm wrong. I used to be impressed with him as one of the "most connected" politicians I've ever seen on social media, but once you stick around and follow his postings long enough, it's plain as day that he's completely full of it.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by lirette

What am I going back on my word about?. You are just misunderstanding me. Blaine Higgs campaign is running too far to the right, which is what I have said numerous times on here. Because of that the Liberals have picked up traditional blue seats by having moderate conservatives vote liberal. Moderate conservatives aren't voting for "socialism". We cant have productive conversations if we call everything centre left to social democracy "socialism".

There is countries who spend billions of dollars on strong safety nets, but still thrive under capitalism. Our friends in Denmark, Norway, Finland come to mind. These countries have strong economies and high quality of life. Anyway, I don't think you are looking for a respectful conversation so I'll leave it there.

Oh no, you don't ever go back on your word..........nice edit. Looks like I'll have to start taking screen shots?

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by lirette

It doesn't really get talked about enough that Higgs essentially manufactured this issue by fighting his own governments policy and even to the point of wanting to use the not withstanding clause despite basically no evidence that voters wanted that. Its rarely ever mentioned but 2 conservative premiers in PEI & NS both supported keeping a similar policy as the original 713. Both of those premiers currently have strong favorability ratings. Meanwhile Higgs language in NB demonized teachers and had a unfortunate number of people accusing them of being pedos and groomers.

NB lags behind in education in nearly every metric, and is bleeding bus drivers left and right, but the education minister obsessed over this issue because it was easier to distract than addressing the issues that impact far more kids.

yeah, it really says a lot about the type of campaign they decided to run.

PEI and NS had the benefit of having PC premiers that actually cared about policy and decision making beyond paying down government debt and generating surpluses.

Higgs was far too worried about making Trudeau a boogeyman for everything wrong in NB, and especially would not work with the federal government if it meant sharing a win with Trudeau. Blaine Higgs put partisan federal politics above the best interests of the province and the people of NB. NS and PEI have PC premiers who have been willing to work with the federal government, even if it means delivering Trudeau some modest, meaningless wins.

The credit he gets for his economic stewardship is pretty dubious. He cut spending, and didn't cut taxes, and then received record levels of federal support during the pandemic that he squirrelled away the best he could to juke the stats to brag about having the largest surplus in history. The electorate made it pretty clear how little they cared about his "successes" paying down the debt and generating surpluses.

[MonctonRad]

I am not devastated by the Holt win. Higgs had done an effective job of making himself unpalatable. This is all on him. I am glad he will have to resign.

I am willing to give Holt a chance. She should not take the recent election results as some sort of massive sea change in the NB electorate however. Moderate conservatives are still moderate conservatives. Higgs just alienated them. They didn't become instant Liberals. She will continue to need to earn their support in the future. If she strays too far from a centrist agenda which appeals to both anglophone and francophone New Brunswickers, she will see this temporary support vanish.

Good luck to her...........

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

The electorate made it pretty clear how little they cared about his "successes" paying down the debt and generating surpluses.

But paying down debt is important. Every dollar spent servicing the debt is a dollar that can't be spent on government programs. We need to keep the debt under control.

If I am not mistaken (correct me if I am wrong), servicing costs is one of the largest 1-2 line items in the provincial budget. Just think if we could spend that money instead on necessary infrastructure or on health care or education........

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

Oh no, you don't ever go back on your word..........nice edit. Looks like I'll have to start taking screen shots?

Bro, screen shots? That's just too funny, come on lol.

Not every political party you happen to disagree with is socialist. Why are you so bent out of shape about this issue? It's abundantly clear that the PCs lit a tinder box with this issue and didn't bother trying to put out the flames. This "issue" been Higgs's primary campaign strategy since the false start election call last year.

That false start was perhaps the stupidest thing Higgs did. Had he just went through with the election call last year, he and his party could have at least suffered a far less devastating loss. Instead, he put Team Holt into campaign mode ever since the false election call, which led to him running a very flat footed campaign where he got absolutely demolished.

[lirette]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

Oh no, you don't ever go back on your word..........nice edit. Looks like I'll have to start taking screen shots?

Huh? My edit was to add the additional comment at the bottom. This isn't some gotcha moment. If you think I went back on something then just explain it?

I've been posting critically on this forum for a month on Blaine Higgs shift to the right, embracing candidates like Faytene, losing moderates like Carr and others. Nothing I've posted last night is anything different. What exactly do you think you've caught me on here?

If I haven't explained myself well that's on me, but if you cant just explain what I changed my mind on then move on to trolling someone else.

Let me make it super clear for you, and then you can explain to me what I'm flip flopping on.

-Higgs shifted his party to the right
-Higgs lost the election in a blowout including not even winning his own seat.
-In order for this to happen, traditional conservative voters voted liberal. We can see this in the riding data looking at past votes.
-The current members of the PC party should be reflecting deeply on this failure while rebuilding the party.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

But paying down debt is important. Every dollar spent servicing the debt is a dollar that can't be spent on government programs. We need to keep the debt under control.

If I am not mistaken (correct me if I am wrong), servicing costs is one of the largest 1-2 line items in the provincial budget. Just think if we could spend that money instead on necessary infrastructure or on health care or education........

Did I say it wasn't important? Higgs did a poor job explaining why paying down debt is important. Moreover, he was straight up negligent with his penny pinching attitude towards fixing the healthcare system, funding solutions for homelessness, improving the public education system, or getting more housing built.

Higgs put posting large surpluses ahead of investing in the services, programs, and infrastructure that the people of New Brunswick wanted and needed.

It's not binary, high surpluses or huge deficits were not the only two options, but way to present a false dichotomy, as you so often do.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by ChampduLarge

Re: People who come up with these types of policies are the ones dividing. Who would actually think that you could come up with something like that and have everyone okay with it? If we don't agree though then we are the divisive ones and we are the problem? Definitely not.

A few things here:
- The one who came up with the original Policy 713 was Higgs, in 2020. Not any other government.
- Higgs out and out lied about complaints about the policy when he first started revisiting. The CBC did an FOI on complaints between when it was implemented and then the revisions started to be announced, and they where told there was nothing to give as there had not been complaints.
- So Higgs revised his own policy. Why is that? Is it possible that he was looking to foment culture wars? Missouri, for instance, had 49 bills proposed against transgener people. In January 2024. The only possible reason for the whole 713 thing was that he believed that he had found a powerless minority that could be used for his purposes, he was looking for a lift for his election chances by mobilizing a base of people. This is very frankly out of the US playbook.

And I think this backfired spectacularly. There are an extremely small number of people who are violently opposed to trans stuff. Most people find it confusing, or funny, or they don't care. The ones who are closest to the issue, trans people themselves, their relatives, their doctors, their teachers, were all opposed to the changes Higgs made.

This is why I laughed out loud when he lost his seat. This is why he did not deserve to re re-elected. Higgs did some good stuff, I am happy the province is on an even keel financially, he was not a monster but he misjudged the whole thing.

Regarding the US style playbook, why is that being brought up? Liberal governments all across the world mimic each other and work together to push certain agendas and copy each other's policies. If a Conservative government does the samething now it's wrong. Nothing more than a double standard. That's not an argument against policy 713.

Yes Higgs did invent policy 713, but he isn't the one who came up with the policy in the Canadian school system where teachers were obligated to use the preferred pronouns or names of transgender or non-binary students under the age of 16. Kids shouldn't be consulting the school system but their families. If their family doesn't take it well, that's unfortunate, but kids shouldn't feel closer to the school system than their own parents.

What a hopeless feeling these poor parents must have that the government has more control over their own kids than they do and that they are allowing these kids to make decisions about their body that they don't truely even understand yet. State grown kids, perfect! Next they'll say that if the parents are causing too much trouble and hindering their development that they'll have to be put in protective placement as fosters that's safer for trans kids.

If more people could afford private school the school system would be cut in half.

[lirette]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

But paying down debt is important. Every dollar spent servicing the debt is a dollar that can't be spent on government programs. We need to keep the debt under control.

If I am not mistaken (correct me if I am wrong), servicing costs is one of the largest 1-2 line items in the provincial budget. Just think if we could spend that money instead on necessary infrastructure or on health care or education........

I ask this in good faith, and do understand the arguments around paying down the debt. I think we can do both if we focus spending on the things that produce positive economic multipliers.

Shouldn't conservatives be far more critical of Higgs #1 election promise to cut HST, when we could just be using that money to further pay down the debt?

It was the most expensive promise in the entire election on any platform, and I'd hazard a guess would have almost no meaningful impact on cost of living.

Wouldn't an across the board income tax cut to the middle class have been a better promise? Or better yet just take the 1.5 billion allocated to the HST cut and pay the debt?