PC caucus members voice support for Higgs amid push for leadership review

Premier Blaine Higgs is getting vocal support from some members of his cabinet and caucus as he faces a growing push to remove him as leader of New Brunswick's Progressive Conservative party.

Moncton Southwest PC MLA Sherry Wilson says Higgs's record on fiscal management and improving health care is a strong one, and members of the PC caucus who don't like his leadership should quit.

"For the people who don't support our premier, and don't look at the good work and the big picture and what's best for the people we serve here in New Brunswick, I think maybe it's time for them to step away," she said.

Critics of Higgs within the party say they have gathered letters from 26 presidents of PC riding associations and 50 rank-and-file members overall — more than enough to start the process of seeking to remove Higgs.

Those letters were gathered over the last 10 days as a debate over Policy 713, on the protection of LGBTQ students in provincial schools, erupted at the legislature.

Four cabinet ministers and two backbench PC MLAs voted with a Liberal opposition motion calling for consultations, helping to carry the motion 26-20.

Wilson said those Tory MLAs should leave if they can't endorse Higgs's approach.

"To me it's a Conservative value that parents are involved in their children's lives. How do we fix it? I think maybe some of them maybe need to step down. They need to go and just retire, just get out of politics if that's the way they think."

Former minister Dorothy Shephard quit the cabinet last week but remains a PC MLA.

She said Higgs's handling of Policy 713 was "the last straw" and the latest in a string of examples where he has cut the cabinet and caucus out of decision-making and instead micromanaged issues.

But Wilson defended that approach.

"Blaine has his own leadership style. He does. But look at the work that's been done under his leadership. … He is the premier and he needs to know what's going on in every sector in government," she said. 

"In any of the departments, if something were to go wrong, the bucks stops with him. He needs to know so he can work with us and guide us." 

Regional Development Corporation Minister Réjean Savoie, elected last year in a byelection in Miramichi Bay-Neguac, also defended Higgs. 

"The premier has done his job well," Savoie said. "We've never been in such a strong financial position."

He said he worried that the public split would damage the PC party.

"When we have a family disagreement, it should happen behind closed doors. … and the Progressive Conservative party is a family." 

Savoie was among the MLAs who stood behind Higgs in a media scrum minutes after the government lost the vote on the Policy 713 motion last Thursday.

He said the impact of the changes to the policy have been exaggerated. 

"I hope this will end well and we can try to calm things down," he said.

Former PC cabinet minister Jody Carr, whose brother Jeff Carr is a minister in the government and among those who voted for the motion, tweeted Thursday that it was sad to see Higgs "lose the confidence of his party, caucus and citizens, and be the last one to realize it."

Wilson was one of the few PC MLAs who supported Higgs in his campaign for the party leadership in 2016.

She became minister of women's equality and minister of Service New Brunswick when the party took power after the 2018 election, but was shuffled out of the cabinet when the PCs were re-elected in 2020.