‘I think my leadership days are over,’ Higgs says
PC leader narrowly lost his own seat in Quispamsis
After losing his own seat Monday night, Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs plans to discuss a “leadership transition” in the coming days with his party’s caucus.
Flanked by his wife Marcia, Higgs, who lost the riding of Quispamsis by 193 votes to Liberal Aaron Kennedy, hinted at his future while calling on the now 16-member PC caucus to “keep the torch burning and to rebuild our party.”
“I think my leadership days are over,” Higgs told media at his somber campaign party at St. Louis Bar and Grill in Quispamsis. “I’m going to talk with the new caucus members and we’ll decide from there what the next steps are, but I won’t do that tonight.”
The 70-year-old former Irving Oil executive, who was first elected in 2010 under the David Alward banner and went on to serve as finance minister, has led the Progressive Conservative party since 2016.
In the aftermath of the 2018 provincial election, the Progressive Conservatives, led by Higgs and with the support of the People’s Alliance, formed a minority government after the Brian Gallant Liberal government was defeated in a confidence vote in the legislature.
Higgs then led the PCs to a majority win, securing 27 seats in the 2020 provincial election. However, for the last two years, Higgs’s leadership style has been steadily under attack by a faction within the party.
Although efforts by riding presidents to oust Higgs as party leader failed last summer, a total of 12 Progressive Conservatives who helped the party achieve a majority win in 2020 chose not to re-offer this fall.
Some, like former health minister Dorothy Shephard, left cabinet posts early, citing frustration with Higgs’s top-down leadership style. Others, like PC stalwart Ross Wetmore, had decided the 2020 election would be their last one.
“A third mandate is a tough one,” Higgs told media Monday night. “We had challenges within – that’s very true – but I ran with a conviction of we do what’s right for the province.”
Despite this conviction, PC campaign insiders acknowledged they knew it was going to be an uphill battle from the start given Higgs was after a third mandate.
New Brunswick voters last gave a third mandate to a premier back in 1995. They re-elected then Liberal premier Frank McKenna for a third term to which he served only two years of that mandate, deciding to fulfill a promise to retire after 10 years as premier.
Unlike McKenna, Higgs’s tenure as premier lasted six years and it wasn’t his decision to bow out of politics. On the campaign trail, Higgs told Brunswick News that if “everything that we’ve accomplished to build a foundation is eroded or gone with a Liberal government, then, you’d say I should have retired 10 years ago. And I don’t want to be in that position. I just would feel, wow.”
“We were the underdogs coming into the campaign. We’ve been there for six years and governments have an expiry date on them,” Higgs’s campaign manager Steve Outhouse told Brunswick News Monday night.
Paul D’Astous, Higgs’s chief of staff, concurred with that assessment, noting he’s been told the average length of support by an electorate for a political leader is about five to six years.
However, D’Astous said he believes the PCs could have been hurt at the polls by the “fear of the unknown” surrounding municipal fiscal reform. He also noted that Higgs didn’t shy away from “somewhat controversial policies.”
In 2023, Higgs became Canada’s first premier to usher in gender-identity policy changes for public school students. Trans and non-binary students under the age of 16 are now required to obtain parental consent for their chosen names and pronouns to be used by educators in New Brunswick schools.
“(Mr. Higgs) has the courage of his convictions,” D’Astous said. “He never let that stop him from doing what he thought was right.”
Higgs largely campaigned on a two-point HST tax cut and promised some modest changes to the health-care system, including expanding the scope of practice for registered nurses, pharmacists and other health-care professionals.
Outhouse said Monday the party hoped those promises would “be realistic and attractive for voters, but voters have passed their judgment and we will honour that decision.”
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