N.B. premier says she won't stay in office past 2 terms
In year-end interview, Holt discusses free votes for her caucus and how long she plans to stay in office
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says she plans to stay in office for a maximum of two terms — if the increasingly polarized and impatient political climate allows even that.
Holt told CBC News in a year-end interview that she recognizes her current popularity, and the good will of New Brunswickers, won't last forever.
"We're expecting it to end any minute now," she joked, "because that's the reality of politics."
The new premier said she's hopeful that New Brunswickers will see her keeping promises — from improving health care, housing and education to relatively quicker measures like a cap on rents and the removal of the HST from power bills — and re-elect her in 2028.
But if she does win a second majority mandate, it will be her last.
"I don't have any plans to serve for a third term. I don't know if my family would last for eight years," she said.
"So really we're just focused on delivering right now to the commitments we made to New Brunswickers."
Holt emphasized that the two-term maximum is "for me," suggesting she hopes to hand off to a successor as Liberal leader who can lead the party to another win.
Her majority victory in the Oct. 21 provincial election was the most lopsided win in New Brunswick since 2010, and the biggest winning margin for the Liberal Party since 1995.
In a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute, 53 per cent of respondents said they approved of her performance as premier so far, compared to 28 per cent who disapproved.
That put her in third place among Canadian premiers for approval ratings — a contrast to former premier Blaine Higgs, who frequently was near the bottom of the Angus Reid rankings.
But there's no guarantee Holt's popularity will last.
No New Brunswick premier has managed to win two consecutive majority governments since Progressive Conservative Bernard Lord — and even Lord barely scraped back in with a one-seat majority for his second mandate.
Holt says it's become easier for an impatient electorate to get angry and to express it.
"It feels like you're getting shorter and shorter attention spans, and I don't know if it's social media, or the news cycle, or who knows what, but we're getting more empowered and we have more agency to express discontent," she said.
"We have more access to information than we've ever had. And when people aren't satisfied, they make it known and they look for change."
Holt says she hopes her plan to give her Liberal MLAs more latitude on how they vote in the legislature will help counter voter cynicism.
The Liberal election platform did not include a commitment to free votes, but the premier says members of her caucus will be able to vote as they feel their constituents want on issues that weren't covered by campaign promises.
"Members should vote in the way that best represents their constituency," she said.
"They're there on behalf of a group of people that elected them. And their votes should reflect what that group of people would want them to do."
Alex Marland, a political scientist at Acadia University who studies party caucus dynamics, says Holt's commitment is "something that will probably be refined the longer she's premier."
Premiers "very much want and need everybody singing from the same song sheet," Marland said.
"It is very, very confusing for the public to hear someone from the governing party's caucus criticize or go offside with what the government is doing."
Holt said even cabinet ministers will be allowed to vote in certain cases "in the ways that the people who elected them would have wanted them to, assuming it is not a matter of a cabinet decision that's been made collectively that they're expected to uphold."
In 2023, four cabinet ministers in the Higgs Progressive Conservative government broke ranks to support a non-binding Liberal motion calling for more study of changes to Policy 713.
Two later resigned, and Premier Blaine Higgs dropped the other two from cabinet in a shuffle, saying they had crossed a line.
But Holt said on a non-binding motion unrelated to a cabinet decision or platform promise, "everyone will have the opportunity to vote in the way their constituents want them to."
Repeated examples of that might even give the government an indication that it needs to rethink whether it's properly reflecting the values of New Brunswick, Holt said.
"But every member of my team knows that they are there to look after the people that put them there first, and they come to the table bringing that voice, and we will ideally have great discussions and find consensus and compromise in a way forward."
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