New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs (Photo: Danielle McCreadie)
As 2019 comes to a close, Premier Blaine Higgs is reflecting on a busy but rewarding first year in government.
Higgs says he’s proud of just how much his government accomplished in 2019.
Despite having a minority government, the PC’s managed to pass legislation on things like binding arbitration, changes to workers compensation, and health care.
They have also succeeded at finding fiscal balance, reducing the province’s net debt, and, increasing forestry conservation. Higgs says forestry and especially the softwood lumber industry will be a big focus for the early stages of 2020.
2019 also saw the implementation of a federal carbon tax, which Higgs felt was unfair to many New Brunswickers. Instead, he took matters into his own hands and created New Brunswick’s own carbon tax plan, which was recently accepted by Ottawa.
Higgs says he’s proud of what he accomplished this year and hopes New Brunswickers are too.
“New Brunswickers should be optimistic. I think we managed to move the agenda forward for the government in a very meaningful way and I think people should be seeing that. We’ve shown that we can work together with other parties, we’ve been able to move big files forward,” he said.
Higgs says growing the province’s population is top of mind for 2020, and he hopes to see those out West migrate back to New Brunswick.
“If they’re having an economic downturn in Alberta right now, and they have nurses and they have employees that are available, which it appears that they do, well send them on home because many of them come from here anyways and we’d like to have them back,” he said.
Higgs says one of his biggest struggle this past year was getting those who have been in government a long time to have faith in him.
“They’re so accustomed to governments coming and going and not used to a government that’s coming in that kind of always on the bubble because of the minority situation. So there is a complacency that is well-founded because there have been so many changes of direction from one government after the next,” he said.
“You have a system that basically has had difficulty in getting traction because there’s been so much change. So probably if I thought of any area that I’m hoping to get more traction on… it’s the engagement of the workforce and the commitment that we’re going to fix New Brunswick.”
Higgs says running a minority government—New Brunswick’s first minority in a century—was not as big as a struggle as many may have expected.
As for its future, Higgs says he’s confident his working relationship with the People’s Alliance, who are currently propping up his minority government, will extend into the New Year.
Higgs says his “resolution” for next year is to engage and inspire New Brunswickers to be part of the solution.
“I want people to feel there is hope in this province for us to do better because there really is. You know, we’ve lost a lot of passion over the last couple of years that you can’t do this in New Brunswick, well I think we’re going to see some really positive changes that people are going to say wow, we can do that in New Brunswick,” he said.
“I feel good about what we’ve accomplished, I feel good about our working relationship with our colleagues, and we’ve got a path forward with our priorities that we are working on. So full speed ahead.”
