Blaine Higgs's election musings to cost taxpayers up to $1M
Elections New Brunswick leased 48 returning offices for vote that never came
"When we have all the information, the [chief electoral officer] will make it public," said Elections New Brunswick's director of communications, Paul Harpelle, in an email to CBC News about what it spent for the fall election that never came.
Elections New Brunswick is the body responsible for running provincial and municipal elections.
Concerned by hints Higgs made through the summer and fall that a general election might be imminent and haunted by problems encountered during the last snap vote, the agency made a decision to put "key" election officers on the payroll and sign leases for local returning offices, in case they were needed.
Kim
Poffenroth is New Brunswick's chief electoral officer. She asked MLAs
in 2021 to ban 28-day campaigns in snap elections. They didn't, so she
began organizing early for a potential snap election this fall. (Graham Thompson/CBC)
The exact price of those moves has not been tabulated yet, but in 2021 Elections New Brunswick warned that without some legislative reforms, an aborted election call like the province has just experienced could trigger significant costs of $1 million or more.
In a report by the chief electoral officer following the hastily called 2020 general election, Kim Poffenroth estimated the price of leasing and outfitting office space for an unscheduled campaign to be $10,000 per month, per location alone.
She also warned those expenses could be incurred even if the election was anticipated but not called, leaving taxpayers on the hook to pay for acres of "vacant spaces."
Elections New Brunswick was convinced enough there might be an election held this fall that it signed leases for office space in all but one of the province's 49 ridings to prepare itself.
Elections
New Brunswick signed a lease with Brunswick Square in Saint John to set
up for a returning office for a potential election this fall. It's one
of 48 leases the agency signed around the province it doesn't need, but
is still paying for. (Robert Jones/CBC News)
According to Harpelle, the leases cover the months of October and November "and in some cases" a portion of December.
That would be more than $900,000 in leasing and outfitting costs for office space alone, based on Poffenroth's 2021 estimates, although Harpelle said amounts are still being tallied.
"We still have not received invoices from more than half of the properties that were rented by the returning officers, so we are not going to release incomplete financial information," he said.
"I don't feel comfortable commenting on possible numbers, or projections based on leasing costs that are now three years old."
In addition to leasing costs, a number of other expenses were incurred by Elections New Brunswick, including the hiring of dozens of election officials who began organizing for a vote in each riding.
Radio-Canada obtained this photo taken Friday of the PC campaign bus that would have been used in a fall election. (Submitted by Charles Doucet)
Those costs have also not been added up but in the past, expenses like that have also been significant.
In 2020, Elections New Brunswick paid more than $400,000 to returning officers and other officials to prepare for province-wide municipal elections that didn't happen, after the vote was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those expenses were incurred again the following year when the elections were rescheduled.
Last week, Elections New Brunswick issued a statement saying it moved to prepare early because its "mandate is to be ready to administer an election whenever it is called."
It is a decision informed by struggles the body had organizing an election on short notice in 2020.
In mid-August that year, halfway through his first term as premier, Higgs suddenly announced the province would be voting two years early and established a legal minimum 28-day campaign.
The snap election and short campaign period caused a number of logistical problems, according to Poffenroth.
"Not knowing when to begin to locate and rent returning offices and order the installation of telecommunications and internet was a major impediment and risk to the successful operation of an election," she wrote in an official review of the 2020 campaign.
"Finding new, suitable locations at the last minute was a factor in several electoral districts."
In recommendations flowing from that 2020 experience, Poffenroth asked legislators to ban 28-day campaigns in "unscheduled" elections and give officials 38 days to work with instead.
But that recommendation was not acted on by the provincial government and when Premier Higgs began musing about calling an election this year, with another 28-day campaign still a possibility, Poffenroth made the decision to get a head start.
Provincial
elections require the establishment of returning offices to oversee the
vote in every riding. Things such as leasing space, installing phones,
furniture, computers and internet connections are expensive and time
consuming. (Shane Magee/CBC)
Election talk in New Brunswick this year first surfaced in June, when several Progressive Conservative cabinet ministers and backbench MLAs signaled opposition to plans endorsed by Higgs to change an education policy designed to protect LGBTQ students.
"It could potentially force an election," Higgs told reporters on June 8, about the internal party dissent.
Election talk persisted right into October, with multiple indications from Progressive Conservatives one would be coming, including their announcement of a campaign manager and the outfitting of a PC campaign bus, with the apparent election slogan "Stronger than Ever."
Last week, Higgs acknowledged he had been "very close" to forcing a fall vote, but for reasons he did not fully articulate said he has decided against the idea for 2023.
"I'm willing to keep going and see how this goes," he said about the decision to keep governing.
That has left Elections New Brunswick with four dozen office leases it doesn't need and a stream of other bills that are still arriving.
"Invoices for the various rentals, purchases and salaries that have been incurred to date are still coming in," it said in last week's statement.
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Jacques Poitras claims he does not read our comments I wonder if the same holds true with Mr Jones as well
But that recommendation was not acted on by the provincial government and when Premier Higgs began musing about calling an election this year, with another 28-day campaign still a possibility, Poffenroth made the decision to get a head start.
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