Higgs agenda to be unveiled with first throne speech of majority government

The New Brunswick Legislature begins a new session Tuesday that could finally reveal how far Premier Blaine Higgs wants to go in transforming the province.

Higgs's government, which won its first majority in September's election, will lay out its agenda when Lt.-Gov. Brenda Murphy delivers the speech from the throne shortly after 1 p.m.

The premier no longer has to worry about the three opposition parties teaming up to defeat him, as they threatened to do in February over his plan for health care reform.

"Because Higgs defended his call for an election based on wanting a majority … it must mean something," said  University of New Brunswick political scientist J.P. Lewis.

"There could be directions in which the government wants to go in that were not possible when they didn't have a majority of seats in the legislature." 

Higgs has frequently said he is on a "mission to save New Brunswick." 

The PC government has identified local government reform as a top priority, and Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said Friday she wants to wrap up consultations on health reform by the end of March.

February's health plan, which included reductions to emergency departments at six small hospitals, was withdrawn within days after all three parties said they might bring down the government over it.

The PCs survived and Higgs called a summer election after trying to get the other parties to agree to a two-year deal to give him the stability he said he needed to keep managing the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Higgs made few new promises, offering to continue existing initiatives and let voters judge him on his handling of the pandemic. He even refused to promise a return to balanced budgets after the pandemic's economic hit created a deficit this year.

His party won 27 of 49 seats.

Lewis said now, "at the furthest point from the next election," is the ideal time for Higgs to take major steps that might be controversial.  

"If he had certain policy legacies that he wants to leave, or certain ways he wants to change New Brunswick, the only thing that's tempering that is that we're still in a pandemic," Lewis said.

"If we were ever to look for what was Higgs's ideal imprint on New Brunswick, it would be the speech from the throne, the legislation and the budget that follows him forming a majority government." 

At the same time, there are calls for action on affordable housing and on systemic racism.

On Monday, six Wolastoqey chiefs called on PC MLAs with First Nations in their ridings to break ranks with their party and support a motion calling for an inquiry on systemic racism.

Higgs has resisted calls for an inquiry. In the wake of separate police shootings of two Indigenous people earlier this year, Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi, he said he would support an inquiry if the federal government took part. 

Former Aboriginal affairs minister Jake Stewart, who Higgs dropped from cabinet in a post-election shuffle, said in September he'll keep lobbying for an inquiry.

"We call on these MLAs to consider their conscience and their obligation to their Indigenous constituents and vote accordingly," said Chief Gabriel Atwin of Kingsclear First Nation, also known as Pilick. 

The government must also announce a process for a mandatory 10-year review of the Official Languages Act by the end of 2020. 

Among the three opposition parties in the legislature, the People's Alliance will likely see the biggest change now that Higgs has a majority. 

Before the election, the three Alliance MLAs frequently voted with the PCs to keep them in power in exchange for being consulted on major initiatives.

Now reduced to just two members, they're getting less attention from the Tories. 

"In previous throne speeches, we had the opportunity to have more direct input and ensure that our fingerprints were within its contents, whereas now you've got to wait until it comes out and decide which angle to go from there," said People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin. 

Without the leverage they once enjoyed, the Alliance is hoping the relationships it built with Higgs and his ministers will give it the opportunity to keep influencing decisions. 

Whether he adopts a more confrontational approach now that he's more fully an opposition figure will depend on the government, Austin said. "At this point it's a wait and see for the throne speech to see what the contents are."

The Official Opposition Liberals chose Dieppe MLA Roger Melanson as their interim leader after Kevin Vickers failed to win a seat in the election.