No New Brunswick election this fall, Higgs says
After six weeks of hints, premier rules out going to the polls before next year
After six weeks of hints and preparations, Premier Blaine Higgs now says he will not call an early provincial election this fall.
The premier first stoked speculation of a snap campaign on Sept. 15, when he announced he would stay on as Progressive Conservative leader to seek a new mandate.
He left the door open to going to the polls this year to put an end to what he called instability in his PC caucus.
Since then he has acknowledged being "very close" to doing it.
But Friday he said this option was off the table.
"There's not going to be any fall election," Higgs told reporters.
"There won't be any election in '23. I guess that ends that speculation, and we can kind of move on."
Higgs said many of the preparations the PCs have made in the last several weeks, including the recruitment of Steve Outhouse as campaign manager, will help the party be ready when the election happens next year.
"We'll continue with the campaign manager being in place to help us get organized. We're in the last year of our mandate."
Higgs identified Outhouse in a late Friday press release. Outhouse managed Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's election campaign earlier this year and ran the federal Conservative leadership campaigns of MP Leslyn Lewis in 2020 and 2022.
The official legislated date for the next election is Oct. 21, 2024.
Higgs has repeatedly complained this fall about six MLAs in his caucus who voted against him in June on Policy 713, which deals with gender-identity in schools.
Despite their promises to support the government on confidence votes, Higgs said, their demands for more caucus input into decisions — and their refusal to meet with him except as a group — was creating "instability."
Only one of them, Daniel Allain, has reconciled with Higgs and declared himself willing to run again in the next election.
All six of those MLAs voted for the government's throne speech on Oct. 27.
Higgs wasn't clear what else had happened since then to resolve the issue for him.
"I'm willing to keep going and see how this goes," he said.
"Hopefully, it can work out well for us and we can get back to focusing on the priorities of government."
Opposition Liberal Leader Susan Holt, whose party became increasingly bold in the last three weeks daring Higgs to trigger an election, said Higgs likely backed down because he was hearing the same thing her party was.
"People started telling us in larger and large numbers, and with more and more anger, that they were fed up with Higgs and they wanted him to go," she said.
Green Leader David Coon said it was clear by last week there would not be an election because Higgs "started blaming journalists for election speculation."
Higgs acknowledged Friday that the election talk was more than media guesswork, and he had been on the verge of doing it.
"We were ready to pull the trigger. I've got to say that," he said. "We were. It wasn't an idle discussion here. It was real."
Radio-Canada obtained a photo taken Friday showing the PC campaign bus decked out with a photo of Higgs and the slogan "Stronger than ever: let's keep building."
Asked about the next possible scenario for an early election — next spring, after his government tables a new budget — the premier laughed.
"Let's just focus on the task at hand," he said. "Let's just focus on a more stable government and moving the bar on big issues for our province."
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