Higgs willing to work with Greens — as long as it's on his terms

Premier Blaine Higgs says he hasn't given up on cooperating with political parties other than the People's Alliance in 2019 — but he says that could depend on the Green Party seeing things his way on natural gas.

Higgs's Progressive Conservative minority government has so far cooperated closely with the Alliance, whose three MLAs give the Tories a functioning majority in the legislature.

Meanwhile, the Alliance's ideological opposites, the three-member Green caucus, has tended to vote with the opposition Liberals.

"The current bills have worked out that way," Higgs said in a year-end interview with CBC News. "There has to still be opportunity. There's still a number of times that we would agree, that we would hope we can work across the floor with."

The Greens have complained that they have not been consulted by the PC government on issues ranging from carbon taxes to bilingual ambulance services.

"They haven't shown any willingness to bring anything out that we want to bring forth to date," said Green MLA Kevin Arseneau. "Maybe it will change, but for now I don't feel there's been any consultation on anything."

In Higgs's throne speech on Nov. 20, the government promised to seek "common cause with women and men of good faith across party lines" and called on other parties to "embrace the challenge of shared governance."

Develop cooperation

The premier noted that the Liberal opposition voted with the government on a bill to change the powers of a tribunal that hears WorkSafe New Brunswick appeals.

Higgs said he hopes there will be more of that in the coming year. "I think this will develop," he said.

But Higgs's main idea for Green cooperation involves that party moving in his direction to support a homegrown natural gas industry, including shale gas development.

Higgs returned from a meeting with other premiers last month praising British Columbia's NDP minority government for allowing shale gas development and backing a planned liquefied natural gas export terminal — while relying on the B.C. Green party to stay in power.

"It would be nice if the [New Brunswick] Greens could be a little different shade and maybe look like what B.C. is doing," Higgs said.

B.C. Premier John Horgan has said his province can meet its carbon dioxide emission targets even with LNG development.

Higgs says that should prove to the New Brunswick Greens that they can support shale gas here and still tackle climate change.

Horgan's NDP won 41 seats in B.C.'s 2017 election, two fewer than the incumbent Liberals. But the NDP took office after three Green members agreed to support the party on confidence and budget votes.

B.C.'s Green leader says that doesn't mean his party supports LNG. "We've been very clear that we will support no such legislation that would enable this," Andrew Weaver said in an interview.

There is a difference

Higgs said despite that statement, the B.C. Greens are voting to keep the NDP in power, funded in part by gas revenue.

"They're quite happy to have other activities that are being paid for from this, and they're supporting the government, so I don't really know if he can make that differentiation," Higgs said.

Weaver said the difference is that with both main parties supporting LNG in British Columbia, the Greens accepted that it was going ahead and backed the party most willing to develop a real climate plan.

That ended up being the NDP, and Weaver says he's "cautiously optimistic" that B.C. can meet aggressive emissions targets even with LNG development, depending on the scale of the industry.

"I don't know where the premier of New Brunswick is getting his information from," Weaver said.

Higgs said last fall that he was working most closely with the Alliance because it was the first to promise to vote with his party to keep the government in power.