Liberals seek to appease Moncton and Saint John with downtown centre, DNA gear

It wasn't so much a tale of two cities as it was a tale of two boxes — two political boxes that the Gallant government put itself in.

On Thursday morning, the Liberals tried to escape both of them, almost simultaneously.

At a press conference in Moncton, cabinet ministers announced that the provincial government would spend $21 million to support the construction of a $107-million downtown centre in the city — despite the Liberals' skepticism about the project early in their mandate.

An hour later, Premier Brian Gallant himself visited the Saint John Regional Hospital to reveal he would reverse the province's veto of $900,000 worth of new genetic sequencing equipment and let the purchase go ahead.

The two announcements, in two cities that are often rivals for government attention, appeared to be unrelated. But it's impossible not to see a political link between them.

Not long after taking office, Gallant denounced the previous Progressive Conservative government for committing $23.9 million to the downtown centre less than 24 hours before it launched its re-election campaign.

"We're not simply going to continue a project because expectations were given by the previous government for the wrong reasons," Gallant said in November.

Moncton lobbied for centre

But Gallant's government is top-heavy with ministers and MLAs from the Moncton area, who were confronted by a vigorous lobby campaign by City Hall and local businesses to support the downtown centre.

The government's tone shifted earlier this spring, with ministers saying they might approve the project if it could meet certain criteria.

Then, as they wrestled with that decision, the Liberals walked into another political minefield.

The Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation had raised $900,000 to buy 13 pieces of genetic sequencing equipment for the hospital.

The foundation had followed the proper process for approval — a process put in place to discourage local foundations from buying equipment that was expensive to maintain and superfluous to the needs of the overall health system provincially.

The Horizon Health Network's board approved the genetic sequencing equipment for Saint John, as did then-Tory health minister Ted Flemming.

But when the Liberals learned of the pending purchase in March, they vetoed it because, they said, the privately run Atlantic Cancer Research Institute in Moncton had four such machines with more than enough capacity to perform tests for Saint John.

Anger mounted in Saint John

For weeks, Health Minister Victor Boudreau wouldn't budge, as anger in Saint John mounted.

Unlike in Moncton, the Gallant Liberals are weak in the city, with only cabinet ministers Ed Doherty and Rick Doucet holding seats in the area. And that fed the perception in Saint John that political favouritism was at play.

An open letter from dozens of Saint John residents accused Boudreau of contradicting himself, defending duality in some cases, but rejecting it for genetic sequencing equipment.

"You have indiscriminately decided that the 'duality' of having this equipment in the Horizon Health Network is unnecessary," the letter stated.

"It would seem quite reasonable that the Anglophone Health Network should indeed be entitled to access of the same tools and resources as the Francophone Health Network."

Adding to the pressure was former health minister Flemming, who accused the Liberals of favouring the Atlantic Canada Research Institute because its president, Dr. Rodney Ouellette, is a friend of key Moncton-area Liberals.

Political damage may be irreparable

Politically, it became clear the Gallant Liberals could not commit millions of dollars to the Moncton downtown centre while sticking with its veto of the Saint John equipment purchase.

So Thursday, the Moncton money was rolled out — an announcement which happens to put pressure on Moncton's Conservative MP just months before a federal election — and was quickly followed with the reversal in Saint John.

But there will be no DNA duplication after all: Ouellette reacted to the Saint John news by announcing he was immediately suspending the genetic sequence testing he does for the health system. He'll ask his board to approve that as a permanent move on Friday.

"I cannot accept to be a party to raping the taxpayers of New Brunswick," he said, explaining that having two facilities do the testing will drive up the cost because the volume at each centre will be too low to make financial sense.

So in an unexpected way, the province ended up avoiding the duplication of health services in this case.

The Liberals will, as a result, see the pressure ease on two fronts: in Moncton, with the downtown centre, and in Saint John, with the medical equipment.

But the two decisions may not erase the long-term political damage.

Critics, including NDP Leader Dominic Cardy, are already criticizing the Liberals for committing $21 million toward a pricey new building in Moncton, while they cut teacher jobs. And others in Moncton say they're losing health services because of pressure from Saint John.

So the tale of two political boxes may be over, but the tale of two cities continues.