New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs — whose party won a second mandate, this time with a clear majority, in Monday’s provincial election — is not known as a risk-taker.
In fact, Higgs has suggested he might be considered “boring.”
But in mid-August, the Progressive Conservative premier — who prefers being seen as “consistent” and trustworthy — took a chance.
Twenty-one months into a minority government, and buoyed by polling showing most New Brunswickers seemed happy with his government’s handling of COVID-19, Higgs called a snap election in the middle of a pandemic.
On Monday, that gamble paid off.
The Tories took 27 of the legislature’s 49 seats, compared to 22 in 2018 (and 20 at dissolution). Their share of the popular vote rose from 31 to nearly 40 per cent.
Meanwhile, the opposition Liberals lost ground, falling to 17 seats from 21 in 2018 (and 20 at dissolution), while their popular vote slipped from almost 38 per cent two years ago to just over 34 per cent. Liberal Leader Kevin Vickers announced he’s stepping down.
The third place Greens increased their support to about 15 per cent but held steady at three seats.
Higgs’ campaign stressed his government’s successful handling of COVID-19 and New Brunswick’s best-in-Canada economic rebound from the impact of the pandemic. The Tories needed a stable majority, the premier argued, to be able to focus on health care and keeping people safe.
Many voters clearly agreed.
Attempts by the opposition to paint Higgs as an opportunist — hardly a shocking moniker to hang on a politician — fell flat.
Not all is rosy in the aftermath of Higgs’ victory, however.
The Tories’ popular vote support, not quite at 40 per cent, is among the lowest ever for a majority government in New Brunswick. Green Party Leader David Coon, who retained his Fredericton South seat, afterward argued that underscored the need for electoral reform.
What’s more, an unsettling provincial linguistic political divide that re-emerged in 2018 was even further accentuated in Monday’s results.
The Progressive Conservatives did not win a single francophone riding, and have just one francophone MLA, Daniel Allain (Moncton East). The Liberals, which swept the francophone north, were meanwhile shut out of the anglophone south, which went Tory blue.
The two parties’ margin of victory in each respective area increased sharply from 2018.
In a province that prides itself on its bilingual identity, that’s not a healthy situation.
On the bright side, a record number of women — 14, nine of them Progressive Conservatives — won seats Monday night.
The election, the first to be held in Canada since the pandemic struck in March, seems to have gone off smoothly. As one would have expected, advance polls and mail-in balloting were both heavy. Overall turnout reportedly was equivalent to that of the 2018 provincial election.
The question for governments elsewhere, looking at Higgs’ victory, is whether they might also translate their own pops in popularity during the pandemic — seen across the country — into similar success at the ballot box.
Maybe. As many political observers note, New Brunswick had among the lowest COVID-19 caseloads in Canada; that’s simply not true in many other jurisdictions.
The message for other politicians? Your results may vary.
