Higgs's PC campaign spending leaned on populists, westerners
Party’s election expenses show payments to consultants aligned with former N.B. premier’s rightward shift
The 2024 New Brunswick Progressive Conservative election campaign leaned heavily — and spent heavily — on campaign consultants with socially conservative and populist connections, particularly in Western Canada, newly public documents reveal.
Financial returns for the PC Party show six-figure spending on services provided by Steve Outhouse, the party's campaign manager, and his company Intercede Communications.
Another Prairie-based company, Mash Strategy, whose CEO has raised the spectre of western separatism, also worked on the campaign.
Both companies also did taxpayer-funded work for the New Brunswick government when PC Premier Blaine Higgs was in power.
"I want to be sure our perspective is not limited to one region, one province," Higgs said of the government contracts in April 2024.
For pre-election and campaign services, Outhouse personally billed the party $154,843 in 2024, while Intercede billed $413,052.
Outhouse's government salary as principal secretary to the premier was $124,656 from April to September 2024.
Mash was paid $31,842 by the PC Party for campaign services. It had a government communications contract worth $72,000 last year.
Mash's CEO Derek Robinson was the chief of digital strategy for former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall from 2011 to 2018 and later joined the Buffalo Project, an organization that supports a more bullish approach to federalism.
It advocated Alberta and Saskatchewan taking control of some policy areas now under federal jurisdiction, including pensions and immigration — which Robinson told a podcast in 2020 was designed to discourage western separatist sentiment.
"If we don't get a fair deal within Confederation within a decent period of time here, I think the flames of separation are going to be burning much hotter in the very near future," Robinson said.
Outhouse is originally from Nova Scotia. He ran Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's winning election campaign in 2023 and two federal Conservative leadership campaigns by social conservative Leslyn Lewis.
Higgs insisted last year that the veteran campaign consultant could hold a taxpayer-funded government job in his office while preparing for the PC government's re-election campaign outside work hours.
"The separation between the night duties and the day duties would be very clear," Higgs said in April 2024.
Mash Strategy started advising his office in April 2023, the same month the Higgs government began reviewing Policy 713, a gender identity policy setting minimum standards for ensuring safe and inclusive schools for LGBTQ students.
Higgs's decision to weaken those protections led to accusations he was shifting to the right, and later that year he embraced Faytene Grasseschi, the Alberta-born Christian conservative activist and broadcaster, as a PC candidate.
"I'll call it a movement, I'll call it a revolution," he said of her candidacy in December 2023.
Outhouse told CBC News on election night last October that Higgs's changes to Policy 713 were "actually very popular overall with the electorate but that wasn't the deciding factor for most people in the election."
Outhouse did not respond to an interview request from CBC News about the PC Party financing return. Nor did party president Erika Hachey.
All registered provincial political parties must file annual financial returns with Elections New Brunswick under the Political Process Financing Act, which regulates fundraising and election spending.
The PC Party's 142-page return for 2024 shows several paid election workers from Western Canada, including:
-
Lianne Bell, the chief of staff to the Speaker of Alberta's legislature and a former staffer to Premier Danielle Smith when she was leader of the province's Wildrose Party.
-
Tasha Schindel, who worked on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's 2019 election campaign.
-
Daniel Kostek, an Alberta student who was an advance co-ordinator for Higgs's campaign tour and who is involved with a U.S.-based libertarian group called Students for Liberty.
The document also shows the party paid some right-leaning media outlets to raise money for Higgs.
Rebel News received $11,730 for election advertising at the same time it was providing positive coverage of Higgs.
Last fall the New Brunswick Media Co-op reported that Rebel News had sent out a fundraising appeal for Higgs by email, linking to a website seeking donations for the PCs.
"Blaine Higgs stands up for families," the site said. "We need to stand up for Higgs!"
The party also paid $2,459 to The Counter Signal, a site launched by Rebel News alumnus Kean Bexte that publishes pro-Conservative content.
It paid $5,332 to Maple Leaf Strategies, a communications firm listed as a partner of the Conservative networking conference Canada Strong and Free, founded by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning.
Higgs spoke at one of the conferences in April 2024. Cards were left on the seats urging attendees to donate money to his campaign.
Not all the Conservatives who pitched in with the Higgs campaign were western-based.
An Ontario numbered company owned by Chad Bowie, a Nova Scotian who works in Ottawa, was paid $89,547 for fundraising and other services.
Montreal-based Conway Direction Public Relations, headed by longtime Ottawa Conservative staffer Matthew Conway, was paid $20,454.
Conway also worked for Ontario cabinet minister Caroline Mulroney, the daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
A Toronto-based company, Knocks Engagement Ltd., was paid $46,000 for supplying professionally trained employees to knock on doors to identify PC supporters — a task normally undertaken by unpaid party volunteers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
