Brian Gallant talks of 'reset,' fresh start in 2nd year in power

The one-year anniversary of Brian Gallant's election win gives the Liberal premier an opportunity to talk about a "reset," a fresh start as he heads into his second year in power.

Most prominently, Gallant is promising a reset of his policy towards seniors — despite he and his ministers insisting that the political backlash was the result of poor communications.

"The policy was a progressive policy," Social Development Minister Cathy Rogers said the day she and Gallant cancelled plans to make some seniors pay more for nursing home care.

"I can't say it was a mistake. It was a fair policy, but certainly the roll-out of the information had created problems."

The "poor communications" argument is a trope of governments in retreat: former Liberal premier Shawn Graham repeatedly blamed the same thing for the unpopularity of his proposal to sell NB Power to Hydro-Quebec.

But Gallant has been forced to fall back earlier in his mandate than Graham did in his, even though Graham's reversals — on French immersion, NB Power, and post-secondary education in Saint John — were more numerous.

Early signs of trouble

Gallant got off to a strong start after taking office. Before the legislature adjourned for Christmas, he had kept two high-profile election promises to impose a moratorium on shale gas development and to loosen restrictions on abortion access.

Both were decisions the Progressive Conservative opposition disagreed with, but both were part of Gallant's platform, so he won a mandate to implement them fair and square.

But even before he could keep those two promises, there were signs of trouble.

The abrupt resignation of a newly elected Liberal in Saint John, Gary Keating, forced an unusually early byelection that Gallant lost. It reduced his majority in the legislature and sent a signal that the province's largest city was wary of the new government.

That in turn may also explain another Liberal climb-down, to approve the buying of DNA sequencing equipment for the Saint John Regional Hospital after first citing duplication in vetoing the purchase.

Gloomy economic picture

Underlying the individual initiatives is an economic picture that remains gloomy. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, and Tories jeered when Gallant explained his campaign promise of 5,000 new jobs didn't mean a net gain, just the expected impact of his stimulus policies.

Meanwhile, the deficit is projected at $470 million for the current fiscal year, which includes a $150 million contingency fund. If it's not needed, the Liberals will crow about hitting their lower $326 million target. If they do need to dip into it, they'll be labelled poor fiscal managers.

And the temptation to dip in — to use that fiscal cushion to take the edge off — may become great as more Liberal decisions start to bite: many Service New Brunswick offices, provincial courthouses, and schools are closing down, with more school-closure studies in the coming year.

The big question facing Gallant as he wraps up his first year as premier is whether he'll move in lockstep with Graham by retreating again in the face of controversies yet to come.

After all, his finance minister, Roger Melanson, has promised next year's budget will be tougher than this year's.

"If we keep delaying these tough decisions," Melanson said last March, "it's going to get even more difficult."

And if tougher measures are still to come, it stands to reason that more vehement reactions to those measures are still to come, too.