People look on as Liberal Leader Susan Holt kicks off the official launch of their party's campaign in Fredericton on Sept. 8.Hina Alam/The Canadian Press
The New Brunswick Liberals got a jump on the province’s coming fall election by officially launching their party’s campaign on Sunday, saying they’re focused on addressing affordability and improving the province’s ailing health care system.
The kickoff, which took place in the Fredericton riding Liberal Leader Susan Holt hopes to represent in the next legislative session, came before the official start of the general election set for Oct. 21.
Health-care emerged as a priority in the party’s platform, in which the Liberals promise to open at least 30 community care clinics over the next four years at a cost of $115.2 million to improve New Brunswickers’ access to primary health care.
Holt said medical professionals have been “asking for a collaborative care model that our government has been slow to roll out.”
“It’s daunting when you think about the challenges that we’re facing in health, and we’ve brought together a team that can tackle those challenges,” she said to a crowded room of supporters at the Boyce Farmers Market in Fredericton.
Holt currently represents the riding of Bathurst East – Nepisiguit – Saint-Isidore, which she secured in an April 2023 by-election triggered when Liberal Denis Landry resigned to pursue municipal politics. This time she has opted to run in a riding in Fredericton, which she calls her hometown.
The Liberals also promise to roll out a $27.4 million-a-year program to offer free or low-cost food at all schools starting next September.
The governing Progressive Conservatives, led by Blaine Higgs, have so far pledged to lower the Harmonized Sales Tax from 15 per cent to 13 per cent if re-elected.
Recent polls suggest Higgs, whose leadership style has drawn critiques from within his caucus and whose policies on pronoun use in schools have stirred considerable controversy within the province, may face an uphill battle with voters this fall.
J.P. Lewis, political science professor at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John, said three primary issues will be on voters’ minds when they head to the polls: affordability, health care and education.
“I think, especially, across many jurisdictions, affordability is the top concern, cost of living, housing prices,” he said in a recent interview.
He noted most New Brunswickers may not yet have a strong sense of Holt as a leader, noting the Liberals spent the summer introducing her to the people.
Lewis said it will take the campaign, the leaders’ debates and meet and greets for people to develop a clear sense of her personality and leadership style.
The Liberals will be facing off against a party whose internal struggles have often played out in the public eye. A few Tories have already crossed the aisle in a bid to oust their former party from power.
One of them is two-term Progressive Conservative member of Parliament John Herron, who will be running as a provincial Liberal when he faces off against Christian television host Faytene Grasseschi in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins.
Another well-known Tory running on the Liberal ticket is Bruce Northrup, who is running in the riding of Sussex Three Rivers which he held as a Progressive Conservative from 2006 until 2020. That seat is currently held by Tourism Minister Tammy Scott-Wallace.