N.B. Liberal Leader Holt keeps distance from Trudeau as election nears
Provincial party once embraced federal leader but now he’s a PC attack line
Politically, it would seem to be a slam-dunk question for an opposition leader trying to use the housing issue against Premier Blaine Higgs.
If Susan Holt and her Liberals win the Oct. 21 election and are sworn into power in early November, would she sign a housing funding deal with Ottawa before a federal deadline at the end of the year?
Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Holt welcomed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement of a $6-billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund.
But — despite slamming Higgs for inaction — she wouldn't commit.
The
day after Justin Trudeau was re-elected in 2019, Premier Higgs
reluctantly accepted that New Brunswick would have to comply with his
federal carbon-tax policy. Now Trudeau seems destined for defeat and
Higgs is pushing for repeal of the tax, while linking Holt to the levy. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
"That's a great hypothetical question. I'd have to understand what are the details of the deal," she said, promising only that the housing issue is "something we'd look to address really quickly" if they won the election.
Contrast that with Green MLA Megan Mitton's response.
"We would go to the table and figure out a way to get that funding in the province and get things built."
It's the latest example of Holt keeping her distance from a prime minister whose popularity has plummeted among Canadians and who generates vehemently negative reactions from some voters.
Last
fall, Public Safety Minister Kris Austin denounced what he called the
prime minister’s 'leftist agendas,' a description Holt didn’t disagree
with when asked if Trudeau was too far to the left. (Jacques Poitras/CBC News)
Last fall, Public Safety Minister Kris Austin denounced what he called the prime minister's "leftist agendas" — a description Holt didn't disagree with when asked if Trudeau was too far to the left.
"I think at times, yeah," she said.
"It looks like, on the continuum, they're more left than us because we're more centrist here in New Brunswick."
As the PCs have ramped up attacks on Holt as a Trudeau ally, Holt has insisted the New Brunswick Liberal Party is a separate entity from the federal party the prime minister leads.
While in Ottawa last year for a conference Trudeau attended, she was not photographed with him and said later she had not met with him.
This isn't the first time the PCs have adopted the linkage strategy.
In
2016, then-premier Brian Gallant broke ranks with other premiers to
sign a bilateral health care deal with the still-popular Trudeau,
upending provincial attempts to hold out for a more flexible agreement. (CBC)
In the 2015 federal election, federal and provincial Tories declared that "a vote for Justin Trudeau is the same as a vote for Brian Gallant," hoping New Brunswickers shared their disdain for the young new Liberal premier and would take it out on the federal leader.
It didn't work. Trudeau won every federal seat in the province.
Gallant embraced the connection. In 2016 he broke ranks with other premiers to sign a bilateral health-care deal with the still-popular Trudeau, upending provincial attempts to hold out for a more flexible agreement.
"We actually see it as a strength to have the same sort of agenda and have many of the same priorities as the Trudeau government," Gallant said at the time — a statement it's hard to imagine Holt making now.
Political scientist Alex Marland says federal and provincial parties of the same stripe routinely "cherry pick" when to stay close and when to keep their distance from each other.
Political
scientist Alex Marland says federal and provincial parties of the same
stripe routinely 'cherry pick' when to stay close and when to keep their
distance from each other. (Acadia University)
"When Justin Trudeau and the Liberals were on the way up … all sorts of provincial Liberals would be happy to show their ties," said Marland, the Jarislowsky chair in trust and political leadership at Acadia University.
"But when the Liberals are on the way down at the federal level, now all of a sudden they're separate entities. … This is all very selective and calculating."
The dynamic can work the other way, too.
The day after Trudeau was re-elected in 2019 — winning six of 10 New Brunswick seats — Higgs reluctantly accepted that New Brunswick would have to comply with his federal carbon-tax policy.
Now Trudeau seems destined for defeat and Higgs is pushing for repeal of the tax, while linking Holt to the increasingly unpopular levy.
Marland says tying provincial leaders to federal policies is disingenuous and not good for democracy, because it adds to existing confusion about which issues are federal, provincial or municipal responsibilities.
It's also possible the PC strategy on Trudeau is a double-edged sword.
Polling
expert Eric Grenier says polling numbers could be misleading — like
when the Liberals won more votes, but fewer seats, than the PCs in the
2018 provincial election. (CBC)
Recent polling by the Angus Reid Institute suggests Trudeau is actually more popular than Premier Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick.
Trudeau had a 34 per cent approval rating in the province, far behind federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — but ahead of Higgs, whose approval was at 31 per cent.
In a head-to-head race, Trudeau might win.
But no such race will happen, and polling expert Eric Grenier of The Writ podcast warns the provincewide numbers could be misleading — like when the Liberals won more votes, but fewer seats, than the PCs in the 2018 provincial election.
"Blaine Higgs probably has higher approval ratings in southern New Brunswick, where the PCS have more seats, and Justin Trudeau probably has higher approval ratings in northern New Brunswick, where the Liberals already hold seats," he says.
"If you were looking at these numbers as voting intention numbers, the Liberals being three points ahead of the PCs would probably not be enough for them win."
The PC strategy to tag Holt with Trudeau may be effective among undecided voters in a handful of southern ridings where the next election could be decided, Grenier said.
Linking Holt to Trudeau, he says, "probably makes some sense in those battlegrounds."
Still, the Tories have recently pivoted to negative attacks on Holt based on provincial issues — such as comments she made a decade ago about school closures — rather than invoking the prime minister.
But unless Trudeau manages an astounding turnaround in his popularity between now and October, it's unlikely his name will vanish completely from the PC campaign vocabulary.
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"I think at times, yeah," she said."
I return Holt should have asked Austin if Higgy is too far to the right particularly in light of the fact many of his fellow caucus members are not impressed with their leader
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Don Corey
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David Webb
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Holt is wise to totally distance herself and party from Trudeau and the extreme left federal Liberals.
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The chief of staff to New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt has resigned as speculation rises about an early election call.
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Herle was a top advisor to former Prime Minister Paul Martin. He was Liberal Party of Canada campaign co-chair for 2004 and 2006. During the 2004 election, as prospects for the Liberals began looking poor, Herle was a strong advocate of attacking Martin's primary opponent, Stephen Harper. In the 2006 election, a similar strategy did not result in similar success.
Herle was managing co-chair for Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's successful reelection campaign in 2014 and again in 2018 when the Ontario Liberals finished in third place. During the several years that Herle worked for the Ontario Liberal government, his firm was paid $3.4 million.[1][2]
David Herle is now the host of The Herle Burly podcast.
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It would be like going swimming with an anchor strapped to your chest.
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The Power List: Top 10 Political Backroomers
The aides, advisers and campaign geniuses behind the big names
These are the aides, advisers and campaign geniuses behind the big names.
1. Jenni Byrne knows how Canadians think— and how they vote
Jenni Byrne + Associates
Pierre Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative Party leadership campaign sold more than 300,000 party memberships. It drew thousands of supporters at rallies in Edmonton and Calgary and more than a thousand to events in Vancouver, Windsor, Ottawa and elsewhere. When the votes and points were tallied, Poilievre wiped the floor with his opponents, cruising to victory with nearly 70 per cent support.
These are wildly impressive figures for a leadership campaign, and they culminated in an impossible feat: uniting the bag of angry cats that is the Conservative Party of Canada, whose factions had spent the seven previous years mercilessly mauling each other. It was a campaign perfectly tailored to Poilievre’s strengths as an orator and a rabble-rouser. And it has put his campaign manager Jenni Byrne back atop the political hierarchy of backroom Ottawa.
You may remember Byrne as the campaign manager who, back in 2011, delivered to Stephen Harper’s Conservative party its long-desired holy grail: a majority government. You more likely remember Byrne as the campaign manager who, four years later, led Harper’s Conservatives to a crushing defeat at the hands of Trudeau’s Liberals. The party had grown fat and listless, and Trudeau had emerged as a political juggernaut. Nevertheless, a long procession of detractors spent months laying blame for the loss on Byrne’s shoulders and attempting to drum her out of the party. In politics, your adversaries are on the outside but your enemies usually lie within.
Her critics underestimated her. Modern campaigns are no longer about persuading swing voters to like you. They are about motivating your supporters to turn out in larger numbers than your opponents. And no one understands the Conservative base—what they think, how they behave and what will get them out to the polls—better than Byrne. As one senior Conservative says, “Jenni is the base.”
Jenni has spent more than a decade advising Canada’s top Conservative political leaders and candidates
She is also a measure of generational change in that base. The Bill Davis Red Tories and the Mulroney-era coalitionites are extinct. Byrne, the new prototypical Conservative, is cast from a different mould. Born and raised in Fenelon Falls, Ontario (population 2,500), Byrne joined Preston Manning’s Reform Party in 1997. She attended Georgian College and the University of Ottawa but graduated from neither. On more than one occasion, she has travelled vast distances with girlfriends to see Meat Loaf live in concert. She’s not just a Habs fan; she’s a Habs fan who enjoys trolling Leafs fans on Twitter. Byrne used to drive a custom Ford Mustang; now she drives a Bronco Sport. Yet when she lived in Ottawa, she settled downtown and went long stretches without owning a car at all, preferring instead to walk to work—behaviour that’s normally considered progressively urbane.
RELATED: Why is Pierre Poilievre so angry?
She and Poilievre were romantically involved for a brief time, more than a decade ago, but there are obviously no hard feelings between them. Everyone who knows Byrne describes her as fiercely loyal, her ferocity never more evident than when she has been crossed. The people who get on her bad side tend to stay there. When she runs a campaign, she commands whatever room she’s in: she listens to those around the table but is unafraid to end the discussion, make a decision and move on. Even with strangers, Byrne’s view of politics is all about relationships. She knows how to read and understand polling data but sees it for what it is: a view from 30,000 feet, far too abstract. The reams of voter data culled from social media, similarly, are simultaneously intimate yet impersonal. For Byrne, the picture is incomplete without the view at ground level.
Jenni canvassing with Thornhill MP Melissa Lantsman (then a candidate) in 2020
Despite the time pressures of managing a national campaign, she’ll make sure to stop in multiple ridings for an evening of door-to-door canvassing. It’s a task most politicians secretly despise, but Byrne has a passion for it. She brings no head-office entourage in tow and won’t accept any VIP treatment from the local candidate. She visits every home assigned to her, and she’s not the type to argue policy on the doorstep. She asks questions, she listens carefully and she says thank you.
All the while, she’s busy integrating all those conversations, along with polling and fundraising data and social media comments, into the sophisticated political algorithm inside her mind. This used to be called having your finger on the voters’ pulse, but that’s too clinical a phrase. Byrne looks voters in the eye. It’s a different kind of connection, one that’s harder to forsake.
And then she transplants that connection into the candidate for whom she works. With Harper, the graft didn’t always take, but Poilievre’s style is better suited to hers. Whatever role she ends up playing on his campaign team (manager? chair?), she’ll guide him deftly through controversy, calibrating responses that appeal to party stalwarts, and she’ll herd them to the polls like no one else can. Conservative fortunes are on the rise, and no one wants to be on Jenni Byrne’s bad side right now.
2. Katie Telford is for keeping Trudeau on track—and in office
Chief of staff, PMO
Telford is the most powerful staffer in Ottawa, with nearly eight years under her belt as Justin Trudeau’s
top lieutenant and campaign wizard. During that time, she’s come up
against—and easily quashed—such milquetoast opponents as Andrew Scheer
and Erin O’Toole. Now she’s facing off against a more potent adversary
in the form of Pierre Poilievre
and his dynamo adviser Jenni Byrne. So far, Telford’s coming out on
top: in December, her ground game won out against Byrne’s in the
critical Mississauga–Lakeshore by-election, where Charles Sousa held on
to the seat for the Liberals. With a possible election in mind, she
started this year by shuffling top parliamentary aides, bringing in Sean
Mullin, an economic adviser, and Alana Kiteley, a key staffer on the
NDP-Liberal supply-and-confidence file—a deal that Telford was
instrumental in striking last year.
MORE: Katie Telford on life inside the PMO
3. Leslie Church is the deputy’s deputy
Chief of staff, deputy prime minister’s office
If Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland
is Trudeau’s second-in-command, then Church is Freeland’s. After a
stint as head of communications and public affairs for Google Canada,
she joined the public service in 2015, where she rose through the
chief-of-staff ranks, running the show for ministers Mélanie Joly,
Maryam Monsef and Anita Anand. She joined Freeland’s office in 2020 as
director of policy, then got the chief-of-staff job after the 2021
election. Church leads Freeland’s team of 30 aides and advisers,
championing Freeland’s priorities (such as climate change and the war in
Ukraine), developing the federal budget and working with private and
public stakeholders to make progress on important agenda items. Church’s
parents were both air-traffic controllers, and she sees her job as
similar to theirs: calmly landing planes while keeping her eye on what
lies ahead.
4. Jeff Ballingall is memeing his way to the top
Founder, Mobilize Media
If
you want to attack the Trudeau government, Jeff Ballingall is your man.
The Conservative strategist is the guy behind the social media accounts
Ontario Proud and Canada Proud, both of which have collected hundreds
of thousands of followers for their super-clicky, brazenly snarky
content. Ballingall and his team specialize in memes that boil down
anti-Liberal sentiment to the basics; recently those included a
Valentine stating “I Love You As Much As I Hate Trudeau” and a mug
labelled “Trudeau’s tears” (it’s available for purchase).
Ballingall’s strategy firm, Mobilize Media, uses this viral-ready content—plus heaps of data-driven marketing—to steer Conservative campaigns: he helped Erin O’Toole win the Conservative leadership in 2020, and more recently, Pierre Poilievre’s team has retained the firm to get their candidate into the PMO. Their bread and butter, Ballingall has said, are female voters over 55.
5. Anne McGrath is pulling off the deal of the decade
National director, NDP
Long-time
NDP adviser Anne McGrath and Justin Trudeau’s chief-of-staff Katie
Telford have been brokering deals for some 15 years, beginning in 2008
with a proposed Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition aimed at taking down Stephen
Harper. Along the way, the two women have become close friends and
closer co-conspirators. Last year, McGrath teamed up with Telford again
to choreograph the supply-and-confidence agreement that would keep the
Liberals in power through 2025. (Discussions reportedly began in 2021,
then kicked off again when Trudeau called Jagmeet Singh in early 2022 to
congratulate him on the birth of his daughter.) McGrath scored several
big wins out of the deal, such as dental subsidies for kids and renters’
rebates. Next up: ensuring the Libs hold up their side of the bargain,
including a national pharmacare bill by the end of this year and a Home
Buyers’ Bill of Rights.
6. Martin Koskinen is the CAQ’s smooth secret weapon
Chief of staff, Quebec Premier François Legault
In
2018, François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, became
premier of Quebec, ending some 50 years of tug-of-war between the Parti
Québécois and the Liberals. Behind the loudmouth Legault is the calm,
decidedly low-key Martin Koskinen—more than Legault’s chief adviser,
Koskinen is the man the premier calls his “alter ego.” Koskinen was also
one of the main architects of the CAQ in 2011, abandoning his job
running an online auction house to lead merger negotiations with the
Action démocratique du Quebec. So far, their team is unbeatable: at last
year’s election, Legault increased the CAQ’s majority, riding on a
populist wave that included such policies as a ban on religious symbols
in the public service, a vehement anti-immigration agenda and a proposed
(but ultimately cancelled) tax on unvaccinated Quebecers.
7. Nick Kouvalis is the puppet master behind Ontario’s elections
Principal, Campaign Research
Ontario’s
most notorious pollster has been behind the scenes of every important
election in the province for the past decade. In 2010, he successfully
ushered Rob Ford into the Toronto mayor’s office, then did the same for
John Tory four years later. He returned to Ford Nation to help DoFo land
a second majority provincial government in 2022, gaining 16 seats from
his previous win. Kouvalis’s firm, Campaign Research, gathered reams of
data and came away with a mantra of “get it done,” targeting federal
Liberal voters who were sick of pandemic-induced delays. In turn, Ford
promised a slew of new jobs and infrastructure. Kouvalis’s research also
supported a blitz of ads on social media and, most memorably, on Waze,
hoping to catch voters stuck in traffic and promise a relief from
gridlock.
RELATED: How to win like Nick Kouvalis in seven easy steps
8. Matt Smith is preparing B.C.’s premier for the fight of his life
Chief of staff, B.C. premier David Eby
Last
year, long-time B.C. premier John Horgan stepped down following a
cancer diagnosis. His successor, the NDP candidate and former B.C.
attorney general David Eby—who won by default after his opponent was
disqualified—will see out the rest of Horgan’s term through 2024. After
that, he’s determined to win on his own merits, and Matt Smith is just
the guy to help him do it. Smith is the former head of the polling firm
Stratcom and a campaign heavy-hitter who worked on races for both Jack
Layton and Rachel Notley. More recently, he helped Eby clinch the
provincial leadership race and now serves as the premier’s chief of
staff. Their flagship issues: addressing housing affordability;
expanding public health care and fighting the emerging two-tiered
system; and improving public safety.
9. Steve Outhouse is winning Alberta’s heartland
Campaign manager, United Conservative Party
Last year, following Jason Kenney’s resignation,
Danielle Smith became leader of the United Conservative Party and, by
default, the premier of Alberta. She’ll have to fight to hold on to that
job, with an election scheduled for May and a tight race ahead against
NDP Leader Rachel Notley. One path to victory is by holding on to—and
expanding—her social-conservative base, and she’s tapped Steve Outhouse
to help her do that. As a former campaign manager for leadership
candidate Leslyn Lewis, Outhouse lost two elections. What he gained was a
shrewd understanding of the social-conservative voter. As for his work
with Smith, Outhouse tweeted, “When you run national campaigns spanning
the entire country, you can’t help but develop an affinity for our
Conservative heartland.”
10. John Brodhead is pushing Trudeau’s agenda ahead
Director of policy, PMO
Brodhead
worked as an adviser for Dalton McGuinty and ex–infrastructure minister
Amarjeet Sohi before leaving Ottawa to work for the much-hyped and
eventually doomed Sidewalk Labs project on the Toronto waterfront. After
that project went kablooey, Trudeau hired him in 2021. He’s one of the
PM’s chief staffers, and leads a team of 14 policy advisers, who liaise
with the cabinet offices to ensure priority agenda items are moving
forward, and on policy matters. After several years of putting out
fires—COVID, the Freedom Convoy—Trudeau and Brodhead will likely be
looking toward proactive policy this year. Among those initiatives: the
massive $196-billion health funding deals between the feds and the
provincial governments, creating more housing supply and keeping the
promises made to the NDP as part of their fragile alliance.
NDP MPs call for investigation into lobbying firm with ties to top Conservative adviser
Federal lobby group ‘Forecheck Strategies’ works from same office as ‘Jenni Byrne + Associates’
Two New Democrat MPs are asking the federal lobbying commissioner to investigate what he calls "potentially inappropriate lobbying activities" by top Conservative strategist Jenni Byrne.
On Thursday, the Globe and Mail reported that a federal lobbying firm is located at the same office — and employs many of the same staff — as Jenni Byrne & Associates, a provincial lobbying firm. NDP MPs Charlie Angus and Matthew Green sent a letter to Commissioner of Lobbying Nancy Bélanger calling for a probe of the relationship between the two firms.
"We are writing to you today regarding our concerns about potentially inappropriate lobbying activities by Jenni Byrne," they wrote in the letter.
"Given Ms. Byrne's advisory role and close relationship to (Conservative Leader Pierre) Poilievre and the Conservative caucus, Canadians deserve clarity on her lobbying activities."
Although Byrne's exact role with the Conservative Party is murky — neither she nor the party will confirm how she is involved — she is viewed as one of the most powerful Conservative strategists in Canada.
She has been seen walking into caucus meetings — spaces typically reserved for elected members, Conservative senators and the most senior staff.
Newly
elected Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida wave
as they take the stage at the party convention on Saturday, September
10, 2022 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Forecheck Strategies was incorporated the first business day after Pierre Poilievre was elected Conservative Party leader in September 2023.
In addition to employing many of the same staff as Jenni Byrne + Associates, it is owned by Andrew Kimber and Simon Jefferies, who are also part-owners of Jenni Byrne + Associates.
Some lobbyists listed as working for Forecheck Strategies on the federal lobbying database are listed as employees on the website of Jenni Byrne + Associates, but not on the website of Forecheck Strategies.
There are other similarities between the two firms' websites. Forecheck Strategies's website cited their CEO being "especially good" at "making messes go away" — seemingly referencing a 2015 Globe and Mail profile of Jenni Byrne.
The reference was removed from the company's website after an inquiry from CBC News. Kimber denies Byrne is involved in the firm.
"Forecheck Strategies is a separate entity which Jenni Byrne has no involvement in. She is not and has never been an employee, consultant, director or shareholder. She does not, has not, and will not receive any compensation from Forecheck," said Kimber in a statement sent to CBC News.
Byrne did not respond to a request for comment and the Lobbying Commission's office said it would not comment on specific cases.
"I would suggest that we have a Conflict of Interest Act, we have a lobbying commissioner that sets very vigorous rules and I expect everyone to follow those rules," Dan Albas, a Conservative member of Parliament, said Thursday.
"I'm sure Mr. Poilievre would be the first person to say that."
The Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition did not respond to a request for comment.
Additional questions about provincial lobbying
Byrne also faced questions in February when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the opposition leader of "pretending" to care about high grocery prices because Byrne's firm lobbies on behalf of grocery giant Loblaw.
The Ontario lobbyist registry lists six employees of Jenni Byrne + Associates as registered lobbyists for Loblaw Companies Limited.
"It turns out that [Poilievre's] top adviser is working as a lobbyist for Loblaws. I think Mr. Poilievre owes some explanations to Canadians," said Trudeau at a media appearance in Waterloo, Ont.
Byrne herself is not listed on any public registry as a consultant for Loblaw. She did not respond to a request for comment.
"Let's be clear about the facts here, Jenni Byrne is not and never has been registered to lobby on behalf of Loblaws," said Jefferies in a written statement.
Speaking to a crowd of Vancouver business professionals on March 8, Poilievre took aim at lobbyists, saying they don't represent the interests of the working class.
"My experience with the corporate lobbyists in Ottawa, the main groups there, has been they have been utterly useless in advancing any common sense interests for the people on the ground," he told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.
"My message to corporate Canada is that if you want any of your policy agenda pushed forward, you're going to have to convince not just me, but the people of Canada that it is good for them."
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