Green leader eyes election night gains, though Bill 11 abstention looms over party
David Coon confident party will ‘more than double’ its seats on Sept. 14
David Coon likes his party's chances heading into the Sept. 14 election.
The Green leader is confident the party will "more than double" its trio of seats in the legislature, and the polls suggest the party could make gains on election night, though winning six or more ridings would be a surprise.
The Greens and the People's Alliance rode into the 2018 election polling at about 12 per cent, but in the two years since, it's been the Greens who maintained their standing with polling averages placing them firmly in third at 15.8 per cent, nearly 10 points more than the Alliance.
In an interview with CBC News, Coon credited the performance of the Green caucus in the minority-government situation and what he sees as a considerable shift in the electoral landscape: Voters aren't afraid of choosing a more progressive option and risk splitting the vote with Liberals.
"There's a sense that [the Liberals] haven't got anything anymore," Coon said after his recent campaigning in northern New Brunswick, a Liberal stronghold with pockets of growing Green support.
"The best they can do is take the Green Party's ideas and put them out there as their own promises. Why not vote for the real deal?"
Read the other one-on-one interview with party leaders:
Coon, who's been leader since 2012 and MLA for Fredericton South since 2014, said the party has been siphoning votes from all parties since its first campaign in 2010, not just the Liberals.
"When most people developed their voting habits, there was no Green Party," he said Thursday. "They became red or blue, and we've reached the point in our political evolution in New Brunswick where there's real choice and people are changing."
Vaccination bill abstention
But the momentum behind the party may have been stunted earlier this year after all three Green MLAs — Coon, Megan Mitton of Memramcook-Tantramar and Kevin Arseneau of Kent North — abstained from voting on the contentious mandatory vaccination bill.
Education Minister Dominic Cardy's Bill 11 sought to remove religious and philosophical exemptions to the mandatory vaccination policy requirement for school children. Unvaccinated kids without valid medical reasons would not have been allowed to go to school starting in September 2021.
The bill was defeated by two votes on June 18, and the Green abstention was roundly criticized by House members and the public for what many viewed as an abdication of responsibility on a difficult matter. Progressive Conservative Ross Wetmore also abstained.
The Greens said at the time — and Coon reiterated Thursday — they support mandatory vaccinations, but it should be up to the chief medical officer of health to eliminate exemptions "based on public health requirements." An amendment to alter the bill was voted down.
Mitton and Arseneau told CBC News in late June Cardy didn't have complete data on vaccination rates and couldn't demonstrate such a strict measure was needed now.
On Thursday, Coon said he wanted exemptions removed "when necessary from a public health perspective," not a "random date" as set out in the bill. He said the province's mandatory vaccination legislation has been effective in producing high levels of vaccination rates.
The Green leader said it was difficult to communicate their nuanced argument around the existing legislation, when the debate, in effect, spiralled into a referendum on mandatory vaccinations.
"I wanted to be able to vote for the bill without reservations," he said, noting the issue has prompted "a lot of questions" from the public.
Asked if it could cost them votes, Coon said, "We'll see."
On the matter of COVID-19 vaccination, he said it should be mandatory without exemptions because there isn't immunity in the population.
Influence at the legislature
Coon touted his caucus' ability to influence key pieces of legislation and the recent budget during two years of the province's first minority government in more than a century.
The first year was "rough," he said, explaining how Premier Blaine Higgs attempted to govern as if he held a majority. In some respects, the PCs could operate in that fashion with a pledge from the Alliance to prop up the government.
But Coon said about eight months ago the parties became more open to collaboration, and the Greens managed to pass some of their ideas.
They include granting domestic violence survivors the ability to end their lease early and tying income assistance to the consumer price index. Coon also believes they've changed Higgs's mind on matters like improving provincial food sustainability and mental health.
"I see those as direct consequences of the work the three of us have been doing in the legislative assembly," Coon said.
With files from Harry Forestell, Jacques Poitras and Éric Grenier