The Lamrock factor: Ex-politician's intervention on Policy 713 offers Higgs a lifeline

In 2018, Blaine Higgs's fragile new minority government faced a delicate task.

His Progressive Conservatives took power after the previous Liberal government of Brian Gallant lost a confidence vote on its throne speech.

Higgs's team had to draft a throne speech of their own that would set out a common purpose despite clear political divisions in the province.

It required an eloquent articulation of hard realities and get-the-job-done practicality.

Enter Kelly Lamrock.

The former Liberal cabinet minister-turned-NDP candidate-turned PC adviser helped draft the speech.

"Your government seeks common cause with women and men of good faith across party lines," the speech declared with one of Lamrock's trademark rhetorical flourishes.

"New Brunswickers challenged this legislature to place province above party, to embrace shared dreams and reject old grievances," the speech said. "Rising to meet the moment means hard work, honest debate and the potential of new solutions." 

Fast forward almost five years, and Lamrock's report on Policy 713 contained a similar mix of forcefully articulated principles and odes to good-faith compromises.

"There may be more common ground in this discussion than some had feared," said Lamrock, now the province's child and youth advocate.

"Each side's worst perceptions of each other have not generally been born out by the other side." 

Lamrock slammed the recent changes to the policy on LGBTQ students, declaring they violated the rights of children.

But he also called on all sides in the debate to avoid divisive rhetoric.

"We are able to disagree without being disagreeable. We are able to disagree without dehumanizing those who take the other side. … We should all strive to get along." 

That sentiment is a Lamrock hallmark, along with his tendency, on display again Tuesday, to mix smart-boy legalisms with a pinch of Generation-X pop culture references, leavened by displays of self-effacing humility.

At its core, his report is an offer to help rescue Higgs from legal peril over Policy 713 — and another example of how Lamrock has sought to put himself at the centre of the political action for decades.

"I understand the role of the politician," he said Tuesday, an understatement if there ever was one.

Lamrock has long been a big presence in New Brunswick politics, displaying sharp intelligence, tough debating skills and an almost feral appetite to play a role.

He first became prominent as the student president at the University of New Brunswick, criticizing Frank McKenna's Liberal government in 1995 for auditing student loan applicants. 

His own audit and tax records were leaked to the media, earning him sympathy from government critics and name recognition.

Eight years later he ran and was elected as a Liberal — no hard feelings — and as education minister announced the end of early French immersion.

It was a Blaine Higgs-style disruption that angered many parents but that Lamrock defended aggressively and eloquently, until the courts blocked the move and he compromised.

After losing his seat in the next election, he defected to the NDP, a party that appeared to be on the rise with his longtime friend Dominic Cardy as leader.

But as a New Democratic candidate in the 2014 election, Lamrock placed fourth with less than 20 per cent of the vote, marking the apparent end of his political phase. 

As a lawyer in private practice, however, Lamrock took on cases that thrust him back into the arena, including a 2015 lawsuit by parents in Brown's Flat to block the Liberal closure of their school.

Lamrock argued the province failed to meet a high standard for consultations — the opposite of the position he took with his own immersion changes in 2008. He lost.

After his friend Cardy joined the PCs, citing his admiration for Higgs, Lamrock became an informal adviser to the Tory leader. 

Higgs appointed him child and youth advocate in 2021, brushing off questions he was favouring him for partisan reasons. 

The premier noted Lamrock had "a history in most [political] parties," but added: "Certainly he's demonstrated his capabilities … no matter what team he's on at the time." 

This spring, however, Higgs appeared to regret the choice after Lamrock waded into the thick of the battle over Policy 713.

First, Lamrock called the review of Policy 713 a "broken and incoherent process" prompted by only three emails.

Then, some PC MLAs understood that Higgs had agreed the caucus could run any eventual changes past Lamrock privately and abide by whatever the child advocate decided.

But that didn't happen, and days after the changes were unveiled, Lamrock called them "shoddy and inadvertently discriminatory."

Higgs shot back that in private, Lamrock had been "more supportive than what we've seen publicly. … Yes, he had some other ideas, but not to the extent that he portrayed today." 

The premier also suggested the fact Lamrock was "very close" to Cardy, who angrily quit as PC education minister over Higgs's approach to French immersion, had coloured his views. 

"There are connections here we know about," Higgs said, sarcastically commenting that it was "amazing" Lamrock criticized the review so quickly after it became known.

He had appointed Lamrock "in all good faith," he said, "and I guess I expect the best from everyone, and I expect their own individual opinions."

But if Higgs was wishing he'd chosen someone else for the position, he may yet see value in Lamrock's more detailed, exhaustively legalistic report this week.

Yes, it offers a harsh assessment of the new policy.

The changes look like they were "dreamt up in a laboratory with no contact with actual human teenagers," he said, predicting they will be found to violate the Human Rights Act, the Education Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

"The law is pretty clear. If they don't want me to tell them, the courts will."

But the document also tries to clear a path for Higgs to back down, presenting Lamrock's own proposed rewrite of the policy.

Notably, his suggestion to leave it to school principals to assess the "capacity" of students younger than 12 to request new names and pronouns is a potential exit ramp for the government.

It would be a step back from an outright ban while still nodding to the role of parents.

"Throughout this process I've remained hopeful that with careful reflection and active listening and respect for expertise, we can achieve a balanced policy that reasonable people can support," Lamrock said Tuesday.

It's classic Lamrock, a humble suggestion that there's a compromise to be had — particularly the one he is mapping out, if Higgs is willing to listen.

"Some governments put people in this job who are just not likely to call them out. I doubt that was my reputation, and even as I call them out, I think it should be noted that government chose to hire somebody like me to do this," he said.

"I always take that to mean they're coming at this in good faith and want the advice."